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QUEEN ELIZABETH
QUEEN ELIZABETH
BY
EDWAKD SPENCER BEESLY
Sine ira et studio, quorum causasprocul liabco.
TACITUS, Ann. i. 1.
MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1906
All rights reserved
FIRST EDITION PRINTED FEBRUARY 1892.
REPRINTED MARCH 1892; 1895; 1897; 1900; 1903; 1906.
CONTENTS
CHAPTEE I
EARLY LIFE, 1533-1558 I
CHAPTEK II
THE CHANGE OF RELIGION, 1559 ... 6
CHAPTER III
FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1559-1563 18
CHAPTER IV
ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART, 1559-1568 ... 38
CHAPTER V
ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS, 1568-1572 78
CHAPTER VI
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 1572-1583 . . 101
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI A
PAOK
THE PAPAL ATTACK, 1570-1583 128
CHAPTER VIII
PROTECTORATE OF THE NETHERLANDS, 1584-1586 . . 156
CHAPTER IX
EXECUTJJN OF THE QUEEN OF SCOTS : 1584-1587 . . 174
CHAPTER X
WAR WITH SPAIN, 1587-1603 . . . . / . 188
CHAPTER XI
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, 1588-1601 . . . . . .211
CHAPTER XII
LAST YEARS AND DEATH, 1601-1603 . . . .230
CONTENTS vii
APPENDIX
PAGE
A. SESSIONS OF PARLIAMENT IN THE REIGN OF ELIZA-
BETH 243
B. PRINCIPAL HOWARDS CONTEMPORARIES OF ELIZABETH 244
C. PRINCIPAL BOLEYN RELATIONS OF ELISABETH . . 245
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE : 1533-1558
I HAVE to deal, under strict limitations of space?
with a long life, almost the whole of its adult period
passed in the exercise of sovereignty a life which is
in effect the history of England during forty-five years,
abounding at the same time in personal interest, and
the subject, both in its public and private aspects, of
fierce and probably interminable controversies. Evi-
dently a bird's-eye view is all that can be attempted :
and the most important episodes alone can be selected
for consideration.
The daughter of Henry vin. and Anne Boleyn was
born on September 6, 1 533. Anne was niece of Thomas,
third Duke of Norfolk, and all the great Howard
kinsmen attended at the baptism four days after-
wards. Elizabeth was two years and eight months
old when her mother was beheaded, and she herself
was declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament. It is
not recorded that in after years she expressed any
opinion about her mother or ever mentioned her name.
She never took any steps to get the Act of attainder
repealed ; but perhaps she indirectly showed her belief
A
2 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
m Anne's innocence by raising the son of Norris, her
alleged paramour, to the peerage, and by the great
favour she always showed to his family.
During her father's life Elizabeth lived chiefly at
Hatfield with her brother Edward, under a governess.
Henry had been empowered by Parliament in 1536 to
settle the succession by his will. In 1544 he caused
an Act to be passed placing Mary and Elizabeth next
in order of succession after Edward. By his will, made
a few days before his death, he repeated the provisions
of the Act of 1544, and placed next to Elizabeth the
daughters of his younger sister, the Duchess of Suffolk,
tacitly passing over his elder sister, the Queen of
Scotland.
After her father's death (Jan. 1547) Elizabeth, then
a girl of thirteen, went to reside with the Queen
Dowager Catherine, who had not been many weeks a
widow before she married her old lover Thomas
Seymour, the Lord Admiral, brother of the Protector
Somerset, described as " fierce in courage, courtly in
fashion, in personage stately, in voice magnificent, but
somewhat empty of matter." The romping that soon
began to go on between this dangerous man and
Elizabeth was of such a nature that early in the next
year Catherine found it necessary to send her away
somewhat abruptly. From that time she resided
chiefly at Hatfield.
In August 1548 Catherine died, and the Admiral at
once formed the project of marrying Elizabeth. This
and other ambitious designs brought him to the scaffold
(March 1549). It does not appear that Elizabeth saw
or directly corresponded with him after he was a
r EARLY LIFE: 1533-1558
widower. But she listened to his messages, and
dropped remarks of an encouraging kind which she
meant to be repeated to him. She knew perfectly
well that the marriage would not be permitted. She
was only flirting with a man old enough to be her
father just as she afterwards flirted with men young
enough to be her sons. We already get a glimpse of
the utter absence both of delicacy and depth of feeling
which characterised her through life. When she heard
of the Admiral's execution she simply remarked, " This
day died a man with much wit and very little judg-
ment." With Elizabeth the heart never really spoke,
and if the senses did, she had them under perfect
control. And this was why she never loved or was
loved, and never has been or will be regarded with
enthusiasm by either man or woman. For some time
after this scandal she was evidently somewhat under a
cloud. She lived at her manor-houses of Ashridge,
Enfield, and Hatfield, diligently pursuing her studies
under the celebrated scholar Ascham.
When Edward died (July 6, 1553) Elizabeth was
nearly twenty. Although Mary's cause was her own,
she remained carefully neutral during the short queen-
ship of Jane. On its collapse she hastened to congratu-
late her sister, and rode by her side when she made her
entry into London. During the early part of Mary's
reign her life hung by a thread. The slightest
indiscretion would have been fatal to her. Wyatt's
insurrection was made avowedly in her favour. But
neither to that nor any other conspiracy did she extend
the smallest encouragement. Her prudent and blame-
less conduct gave her the more right in after years to
* QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
deal severely with Mary Stuart, whose behaviour under
precisely similar circumstances was so very different.
Renard, the Spanish ambassador, demanded her
execution as the condition of the Spanish match, and
Mary assured him that she would do her best to satisfy
him. In the time of Henry vm. such an intention on
the part of the sovereign would have been equivalent
to a sentence of death. But Mary was far from being
as powerful as her father. The Council had to be
reckoned with, and in the Council independent and
even peremptory language was now to be heard. It
was not without strong protests on the part of some
of the Lords that Elizabeth was sent to the Tower.
Sussex, a noble of the old blood, who was charged to
conduct her there, took upon him to delay her departure,
that she might appeal to the Queen for an interview.
Mary was furious : " For their lives/' she said, " they
durst not have acted so in her father's time ; she
wished he was alive and among them for a single
month." But it was usless to storm. The absolute
monarchy had seen its best days. Sussex, fearing
foul play, warned the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep
within his written instructions. Howard of Effingham,
the Lord Admiral, had done more than any one else to
place Mary on the throne. But he was Elizabeth's
great-uncle, and he angrily insisted that her food in the
Tower should be prepared by her own servants. A
proposal in Parliament to give the Queen the power to
nominate a successor was received with such disfavour
that it had to be withdrawn. Finally the judges
declared that there was no evidence to convict Eliza-
beth. Sullenly therefore the Queen had to give way.
I EARLY LIFE : 1533-1558 5
Elizabeth was sent to Woodstock, where she resided
for about a year under guard. This was only reason-
able. An heir to the throne, in whose favour there
had been plots, could not expect complete freedom. In
October 1555 she was allowed to go to Hatfield under
the surveillance of Sir Thomas Pope. During the rest
of the reign she escaped molestation by outward con-
formity to the Catholic religion, and by taking no part
whatever in politics. But as it became clear that her
accession was at hand there can be no doubt that she
was engaged in studying the problems with which she
would have to deal. She was already in close intimacy
with Cecil, and it is evident that she mounted the
throne with a policy carefully thought out in its main
lines.
When Mary was known to be dying, the Spanish
ambassador, Feria, called on Elizabeth, and told her
that his master had exerted his influence with the
Queen and Council on her behalf, and had secured her
succession. But she declined to be patronised, and told
him that the people and nobility were on her side.
CHAPTEE II
THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559
MARY died on the 17th of November 1558. Parlia-
ment was then sitting, and, in communicating the
event to both Houses, Archbishop Heath frankly took
the initiative in recognising Elizabeth, " of whose most
lawful right and title in the succession of the Crown,
thanks be to God, we need not to doubt." He was a
staunch Catholic, and two months later refused to
officiate at her coronation. But he was an Englishman,
and even the most convinced Catholics, though looking
forward with uneasiness to the religious policy of the
new Queen, were sincerely glad that there was no danger
of a disputed succession. Besides, it was by no means
clear that Elizabeth would not accept the ecclesiastical
constitution as established in the late reign. That
there would be an end of burnings, and of the harassing
tyranny of the bishops, every one felt certain ; but it
seemed quite upon the cards that Elizabeth would
continue to recognise the headship of the Pope in a
formal way and maintain the Mass. It must be
remembered that the religious changes had only begun
some thirty years before. All middle-aged men could
ii THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 7
remember the time when the ecclesiastical fabric
stood to all appearance unbroken, as it had stood for
centuries. Only twenty-four years had passed since
the Act of Supremacy had transferred the headship of
the Church from the Pope to the King ; only eleven
since the Protestant doctrine and worship had been
forced on the country by the Protector Somerset, to
the horror and disgust of the great majority of Eng-
lishmen. The nation had sorrowed for the death of
Edward vi., because it darkened the prospects of the
succession, and seemed likely sooner or later to bring
on a civil war. But apart from the hot Protestant
minority, chiefly to be found in London, the mass of
the nation was conservative, and welcomed the re-
establishment of the old religion as a return to order
and common sense after a short and bitter experience
of revolutionary anarchy. There was a rooted ob-
jection to restore the old meddlesome tyranny of the
bishops, and the nobles and squires who had got hold
of the abbey lands would not hear of giving them up.
But the return to communion with the Catholic Church
and the recognition of the Pope as its head gave satis-
faction to three-fourths, perhaps to five-sixths, of the
nation, and to a still larger proportion of its most
influential class, the great landed proprietors. Mary's
accession was the great and unique opportunity for
the old Church. If Mary and Pole had been cool-
headed politicians instead of excitable fanatics, if they
had contented themselves with restoring the old
worship, depriving the few Protestant clergy of their
benefices, and punishing only outrageous attacks on
the State religion, Elizabeth would not have had the
8 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
power, it may be doubted whether she would have had
the inclination, to undo .her sister's work.
This great opportunity was thrown away. Mary's
bishops came back brooding over the long catalogue
of humiliations and indignities which their Church
had suffered, and thirsting to avenge their own wrongs.
For six years they had their fling, and contrived to
make the country forget the period of Protestant mis-
government. England had never before known what
it was to be governed by clergymen. It was a sort of
rule as hateful to most Catholic laymen as to Protes-
tants. Catholics therefore for the most part, as well as
Protestants, hailed the accession of Elizabeth. At any
rate there would be an end of the clerical tyranny.
Nor were they without hope that she would maintain
the old worship. She had conformed to it for the last
five years, and Philip had given the word that she wa?
to be supported.
We are now accustomed to the Papal non possumus.
No nation or Church can hope that the smallest devia-
tion from Roman doctrine or discipline will be tolerated.
But in 1558 the hard and fast line had not yet been
drawn. France was still pressing for such changes
as communion in both kinds, worship in the vulgar
tongue, and marriage of priests. The Council of Trent,
it is true, had already in 1545 decided that Catholic
doctrine was contained in the Bible and tradition, and
in 1551 had defined transubstantiation and the sacra-
ments. But in 1552 the Council was prorogued, and
it did not resume till 1562. Doctrine and discipline
therefore might be, and were still considered to be, in
the melting-pot, and no one could be certain what
ii THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 9
would come out. If Elizabeth had contented herself
with the French programme, and had joined France in
pressing it, the other sovereigns, who really cared for
nothing but uniformity, would probably have forced
the Pope to compromise. The Lutheran doctrine of
consubstantiation might have been tolerated. The
Anglican formulae have been held by many to be com-
patible with a belief in the Real Presence. The formal
severance of England from Catholic unity might thus
have been postponed possibly avoided in the same
sense that it has been avoided in France. After the
completion of the Council of Trent (1562-3) it was
too late.
Two years after her accession Elizabeth told the
Spanish ambassador, De Quadra, that her belief was
the belief of all the Catholics in the realm ; and on
his asking her how then she could have altered religion
in 1559, she said she had been compelled to act as she
did, and that, if he knew how she had been driven to
it, she was sure he would excuse her. Seven years
later she made the same statement to De Silva.
Elizabeth was habitually so regardless of truth that
her assertions can be allowed little weight when they
are improbable. No doubt, as a matter of taste and
feeling, she preferred the Catholic worship. She was
not pious. She was not troubled with a tender con-
science or tormented by a sense of sin. She did not
care to cultivate close personal relations with her God.
A religion of form and ceremony suited her better.
But her training had been such as to free her from all
superstitious fear or prejudice, and her religious con-
victions were determined by her sense of what was
10 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
most reasonable and convenient. There is not the
least evidence that she was a reluctant agent in the
adoption of Protestantism in 1559. Who was there
to coerce her ? The Protestants could not have set up
a Protestant competitor. The great nobles, though
opposed to persecution and desirous of minimising the
Pope's authority, would have preferred to leave wor-
ship as it was. But upon one thing Elizabeth was
determined. She would resume the full ecclesiastical
supremacy which her father had annexed to the Crown.
She judged, and she probably judged rightly, that the
only way to assure this was to make the breach with
the old religion complete. If she had placed herself
in the hands of moderate Catholics like Paget, possessed
with the belief that she could only maintain herself by
the protection of Philip, they would have advised her
to be content with the practical authority over the
English Church which many an English king had
known how to exercise. That was not enough for her.
She desired a position free from all ambiguity and
possibility of dispute, not one which would have to be
defended with constant vigilance and at the cost of
incessant bickering.
From the point of view of her foreign relations the
moment might seem to be a dangerous one for carrying
out a religious revolution, and many a statesman
with a deserved reputation for prudence would have
counselled delay. But this disadvantage was more
than counterbalanced by the unpopularity which the
cruelties and disasters of Mary's last three years had
brought upon the most active Catholics. Again, Eliza-
beth no doubt recognised that the Catholics, though
n THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 11
at present the strongest, were the declining party.
The future was with the Protestants. It was the
young men who had fixed their hopes upon her in her
sister's time, and who were ready to rally round her
now. By her natural disposition, and by her culture,
she belonged to the Renaissance rather than to the
Reformation. But obscurantist as Calvinism essentially
was, the Calvinists, as a minority struggling for free-
dom to think and teach what they believed, represented
for a time the cause of light and intellectual emancipa-
tion. Was she to put herself at the head of reaction
or progress 1 She did not love the Calvinists. They
were too much in earnest for her. Their narrow creed
was as tainted with superstition as that of Rome, and,
at bottom, was less humane, less favourable to progress.
But whom else had she to work with 1 The reason-
able, secular-minded, tolerant sceptics are not always
the best fighting material ; and at that time they were
few in number and tending in England at least to
be ground out of existence between the upper and
nether millstones of the rival fanaticisms. If she
broke with Catholicism she would be sure of the
ardent and unwavering support of one-third of the
nation ; so sure, that she would have no need to take
any further pains to please them. As for the remain-
ing two-thirds, she hoped to conciliate most of them
by posing as their protector against the persecution
which would have been pleasing to Protestant bigots.
In the policy of a complete breach with Rome, Cecil
was disposed to go as far as the Queen, and further.
Cecil was at this time thirty-eight. For forty years he
continued to be the confidential arid faithful servant
12 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
of Elizabeth. One of those new men whom the
Tudors most trusted, he was first employed by Henry
VIII. Under Edward he rose to be Secretary of State,
and was a pronounced Protestant. On the fall of his
patron Somerset he was for a short time sent to the
Tower, but was soon in office again sooner, some
thought, than was quite decent under his patron's
old enemy, Northumberland. He signed the letters-
patent by which the crown was conferred on Lady
Jane Grey ; but took an early opportunity of going
over to Mary. During her reign he conformed to
the old religion, and, though not holding any office,
was consulted on public business, and was one of the
three commissioners who went to fetch Cardinal Pole
to England. Thoroughly capable in business, one of
those to whom power naturally falls because they
know how to use it, a shrewd balancer of probabilities,
without a particle of fanaticism in his composition
and detesting it in others, though ready to make use
of it to serve his ends, entirely believing that " what-
e'er is best administered is best," Cecil nevertheless
had his religious predilections, and they were all on
the side of the Protestants. Moreover he had a
personal motive which, by the nature of the case, was
not present to the Queen. She might die prematurely ;
and if that event should take place before the Pro-
testant ascendancy was firmly established his power
would be at an end, and his very life would be in
danger. A time came when he and his party had so
strengthened themselves, if not in absolute numerical
superiority, yet by the hold they had established on
all departments of Government from the highest to
ii THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 13
the lowest, that they were in a condition to resist a
Catholic claimant to the throne, if need were, sword
in hand. But during the early years of the reign
Cecil was working with the rope round his neck.
Hence he could not regard the progress of events
with the imperturbable sang-froid which Elizabeth
always displayed ; and all his influence was employed
to push the religious revolution through as rapidly
and completely as possible.
The story that Elizabeth was influenced in her
attitude to Eome by an arrogant reply from Pope
Paul IV. to her official notification of her accession,
though refuted by Lingard and Hallam in their later
editions, has been repeated by recent historians. Her
accession was notified to every friendly sovereign
except the Pope. He was studiously ignored from
the first. Equally unsupported by facts are all at-
tempts to show that during the early weeks of her
reign she had not made up her mind as to the course
she would take about religion. All preaching, it is
true, was suspended by proclamation; and it was
ordered that the established worship should go on
"until consultation might be had in Parliament by
the Queen and the three Estates." In the meantime
she had herself crowned according to the ancient ritual
by the Catholic Bishop of Carlisle. But this is only
what might have been expected from a strong ruler
who was not disposed to let important alterations be
initiated by popular commotion or the presumptuous
forwardness of individual clergymen. The impending
change was quite sufficiently marked from the first by
the removal of the most bigoted Catholics from the
14 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
Council and by the appointment of Cecil and Bacon to
the offices of Secretary and of Lord Keeper. The new
Parliament, Protestant candidates for which had been
recommended by the Government, met as soon as
possible (Jan. 25, 1559). When it rose (May 8th)
the great change had been legally and decisively
accomplished.
The government, worship, and doctrine of the Estab-
lished Church are the most abiding marks left by
Elizabeth on the national life of England. Logically
it might have been expected that the settlement of
doctrine would precede that of government and
worship. It is characteristic of a State Church that
the inverse order should have been followed. For
the Queen the most important question was Church
government ; for the people, worship Both these
matters were disposed of with great promptitude at
the beginning of 1559. Doctrine might interest the
clergy ; but it could wait. The Thirty-nine Articles
were not adopted by Convocation till 1563, and were
not sanctioned by Parliament till 1571.
The government of the Church was settled by the
Act of Supremacy (April 1559). It revived the Act
of Henry VIII., except that the Queen was styled
Supreme Governor of the Church instead of Supreme
Head, although the nature of the supremacy was pre-
cisely the same. The penalties were relaxed. Henry's
oath of supremacy might be tendered to any subject,
and to decline it was high treason ; Elizabeth's oath
was to be obligatory only on persons holding spiritual
or temporal office under the Crown, and the penalty
for declining was the loss of such office. Those who
n THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 15
chose to attack the supremacy were still liable to the
penalties of treason on the third offence.
Worship was settled with equal expedition by the
Act of Uniformity (April 1559), which imposed the
second or more Protestant Prayer-book of Edward VL,
but with a few very important alterations. A de-
precation in the Litany of " the tyranny of the Bishop
of Rome and all his detestable enormities," and a
rubric which declared that by kneeling at the Com-
munion no adoration was intended to any real and
essential presence of Christ, were expunged. The
words of administration in the present communion
service consist of two sentences. The first sentence,
implying real presence, belonged to Edward's first
Prayer-book ; the second, implying mere commemora-
tion, belonged to his second Prayer-book. The Prayer-
book of 1559 simply pieced the two together, with a
view to satisfy both Catholics and Protestants. Lastly,
the vestments prescribed in Edward's first Prayer-book
were retained till further notice. These alterations of
Edward's second Prayer-book, all of them designed to
propitiate the Catholics, were dictated by Elizabeth
herself. In all this legislation Convocation was entirely
ignored. Both its houses showed themselves strongly
Catholic. But their opinion was not asked, and no
notice was taken of their remonstrances.
While determining that England should have a
purely national Church, and for that reason casting
in her lot with the Protestants, Elizabeth, as we have
seen, made very considerable sacrifices of logic and
consistency in order to induce Catholics to conform.
Like a strong and wise statesman, she did not allow
16 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
herself to be driven into one concession after another,
but went at once as far as she intended to go. At
the same time the coercion applied to the Catholics,
while sufficient to influence the worldly-minded ma-
jority, was, during the early part of her reign, very
mild for those times. She wished no one to be
molested who did not go out of his way to invite it.
Outward conformity was all she wanted. And of this
mere attendance at church was accepted as sufficient
evidence. The principal difficulty, of course, was
with the clergy. From them more than a mere
passive conformity had to be exacted. To sign de-
clarations, take oaths, and officiate in church was a
severer strain on the conscience. It is said that less
than 200 out of 9400 sacrificed their benefices rather
than conform, and that of these about 100 were dig-
nitaries. The number must be under-stated ; for the
chief difficulty of the new bishops, for a long time,
was to find clergymen for the parish churches. But
we cannot doubt that the large majority of the parish
clergy stuck to their livings, remaining Catholics at
heart, and avoiding, where they could, and as long as
they could, compliance with the new regulations. It
must not be supposed that the enactment of religious
changes by Parliament was equivalent, as it would be
at the present day, to their immediate enforcement
throughout the country ; especially in the north where
the great proprietors and justices of the peace did not
carry out the law. A certain number of the ejected
priests continued to celebrate the ancient rites privately
in the houses of the more earnest Catholics ; for which
they were not unfrequently punished by imprisonment.
n THE CHANGE OF RELIGION : 1559 17
Of course this was persecution. But according to the
ideas of that day it was a very mild kind of persecu-
tion ; and where it occurred it seems to have been due
to the zeal of some of the bishops, and to private
busybodies who set the law in motion, rather than to
any systematic action on the part of the Government.
CHAPTER III
FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563
THE successful wars waged by Edward in. and
Henry v. are apt to cause an exaggerated estimate
of the strength of England under the Tudors. The
population Wales included was probably not much
more than four millions. That of France was perhaps
four times as large, and the superiority in wealth was
even greater. 1 Before the reign of Louis XL, France,
weakened by feudal disunion, had been an easy prey
to her smaller but better-organised neighbour. The
work of concentration effected by the greatest of French
kings towards the close of the fifteenth century, and
the simultaneous rise of the great Spanish empire,
caused England to fall at once into the rank of a
second-rate power. Such she really was under Henry
VIII., notwithstanding the rather showy figure he
managed to make by adhering alternately to Charles v.
and Francis I. Under the bad government of Edward
and Mary the fighting strength of England declined
not only relatively, but absolutely, until in the last
1 Mr. Motley conjectures that the population of Spain and Portugal
may have been 12,000,000.
is
ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 19
year of Mary it touched the lowest point in our
history. Although we were at war -with France, there
were no soldiers, no officers, no arms, no fortresses
that could resist artillery, few ships, a heavy debt,
and deep discouragement. The loss of Calais, which
had been held for 200 years, was the simple and
natural consequence of this prostration. Justice will
not be done to the great recovery under Elizabeth
unless we understand how low the country had sunk
when she came to the throne.
During the early years of her reign, it was the '
universal opinion at home and abroad that without
Spanish protection she could not preserve her throne
against a French invasion in the interests of Mary
Stuart. Henry 11. meant that, by the marriage of
the Dauphin Francis with Mary, the kingdoms of
England and Scotland should be united to one another
and eventually to France. Philip would thus lose the
command of the sea route to the Netherlands, and the
hereditary duel with the House of Austria would be
decided. This scheme could not seem fantastic in a
century which had seen such immense agglomerations
of territory effected by political marriages. Philip, on
the other hand, made sure that the danger from
France must necessarily throw Elizabeth and England
into his arms. Notwithstanding the warnings he
received from his ambassador Feria that Elizabeth
was a heretic, he felt certain that she would not
venture to alter religion at the risk of offending him.
The only question with him was whether he should
marry her himself or bestow her on some sure friend
of his house. That she would refuse both himself
20 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
and his nominee was a contingency he never contem-
plated.
Elizabeth, from the first, made up her mind that
the cards in her hand could be played to more ad-
vantage than Philip supposed. England, no doubt,
needed his protection for the present. But could he
please himself about granting it? Her bold calcula-
tion was that his own interests would compel him,
in any case, to prevent the execution of the Stuart-
Valois scheme, and that consequently she might settle
religion without reference to his wishes.
The offer of marriage came in January 1559. In
his letter to Feria, Philip spoke as if Elizabeth would
of course jump at it. After dwelling on its many
inconveniences, he said he had decided to make the
sacrifice on condition that Elizabeth would uphold the
Catholic religion; but she must not expect him to
remain long with her; he would visit England occa-
sionally. Feria foolishly allowed this letter to be
seen, and the contents were reported to Elizabeth.
She was as much amused as piqued. Their ages were
not unsuitable. Philip was thirty-two, and Elizabeth
was twenty-five. But she was as fastidious about
men as her father was about women ; and for no poli-
tical consideration would she have tied herself to her
ugly, disagreeable, little brother-in-law. After some
fencing, she replied that she did not mean to marry,
and that she was not afraid of France.
Before the death of Mary, negotiations for a peace
between France, Spain, and England had already be-
gun. Calais was almost the only difficulty remaining
to be settled. Our country mem have never been able
in FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 21
to understand how their possession of a fortress within
the natural boundaries of another country can be dis-
agreeable to its inhabitants. Elizabeth shared the
national feeling, and she wanted Philip to insist on
the restitution of Calais. He would have done so if
she had pleased him as to other matters. Even as it
was, the presence of a French garrison in Calais was
so inconvenient to the master of the Netherlands that
he was ready to fight on if England would do her
part. But Elizabeth would only promise to fight
Scotland a very indirect and, indeed, useless way of
supporting Philip. When once this point was made
clear, peace was soon concluded between the three
powers at Cateau, near Cambray (March 1559); ap-
pearances being saved by a stipulation that Calais
should be restored in eight years, or half a million
of crowns be forfeited.
In thus giving way Elizabeth showed her good
sense. To have fought on would have meant deeper
debt, terrible exhaustion, and, what was worse, depen-
dence on Philip. Moreover, Calais could only have
been recovered by reducing France to helplessness,
which would have been fatal to the balance of power
on which Elizabeth relied to make herself independent
of both her great neighbours. The peace of Cateau
Cambresis was attended with a secret compact be-
tween Philip ii. and Henry IL, that each monarch
should suppress heresy in his own dominions and not
encourage it in those of his neighbour. By the acces-
sion of Elizabeth, and the Scotch Reformation which
immediately followed, Protestantism reached its high-
water mark in Europe. The long wars of Charles V.
22 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
with France had enabled it to spread. Francis I. had
intrigued with the Protestant princes of the Empire,
and Charles had been obliged to humour them. Pro-
testantism was victorious in Britain, Scandinavia,
North Germany, the Palatinate, and Swabia. It had
spread widely in Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands,
and France. This rapid growth was now about to be
checked. In some of these countries the new religion
was destined to succumb ; in some entirely to dis-
appear. Men who could remember the first preachings
of Luther lived to see not only the high-water, but
the ebb, of the Protestant tide. The revolutionary
tendencies inherent in Protestantism began to alarm
the sovereigns ; and all the more because the Church
in Catholic, hardly less than in Protestant, countries
was becoming a department of the State. Kings had
been jealous of the spiritual power when it belonged
to the Popes. They became jealous for it when it
was annexed to the throne.
Notwithstanding its secret stipulations, the peace of
Gateau Cambresis relieved England from the most
pressing and immediate perils by which she was
threatened. Neither French nor Spanish troops had
made their appearance on our soil. A breathing-time
at least had been gained, during which something might
be done towards putting the country in a state of
defence, and restoring the finances.
But the danger from France was by no means at
an end. In the treaty with England, the title of
Elizabeth had been acknowledged. But in that with
Spain, the Dauphin had styled himself " King of Scot-
land, England, and Ireland." He and Mary had also
Hi FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 23
assumed the English arms. If a French army invaded
England, it would come by way of Scotland. The
English Catholics, who had for the most part frankly
accepted the succession of Elizabeth, were disappointed
and irritated by the change of religion. If Mary
should go to Scotland with a French force, it was to
be apprehended that a rebellion would immediately
break out in the northern counties. Philip, no doubt,
would land in the south to drive out the Dauphiness.
But the remedy would be worse than the disease.
For he was deeply discontented with the conduct of
Elizabeth, and would probably take the opportunity
of deposing her. To establish, therefore, her inde-
pendence of both her powerful neighbours, Elizabeth
had to begin by destroying French influence in Scot-
land.
The wisest heads in Scotland had long seen the
advantage of uniting their country to England by
marriage. The blundering and bullying policy of the
Protector Somerset had driven the Scotch to renew
their ancient alliance with France. But the attempts
of the Regent Mary of Guise to increase French in-
fluence, and to establish a small standing army, in
order at once to strengthen her authority, and to
serve the designs of Henry n. against England, had
again made the French connection unpopular, and
caused a corresponding revival of friendly feeling to-
wards England.
Nowhere was the Church so wealthy, relatively to
the other estates, as in Scotland. It was supposed to
possess half the property of the country. Nowhere
were the clergy so immoral. Nowhere was supersti-
24 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
tion so gross. But the doctrines of the Reformation
were spreading among the common people, and in
1557 some of tfhe nobles, hungering for the wealth
of the Church, put themselves at the head of the Pro-
testant movement. They were known as the " Lords
of the Congregation."
The Scotch Reformation began not from the Govern-
ment, as in England, but from the people. Hence,
while change of supremacy was the main question in
England, change of doctrine and worship took the
lead in Scotland. The two parties were about equal
in numbers, the Protestants being strongest in the
Lowlands. But, with the exception of the murder of
Beaton in 1546, there had, as yet, been no appeal to
force, nor any attempt to procure a public change of
religion. The accession of Elizabeth emboldened the
Protestants. At Perth they took possession of the
churches and burnt a monastery. On the other hand,
after the peace of Gateau Cambresis, Henry II. directed
the Regent to put down Protestantism, both in pur-
suance of the agreement with Philip, and in order to
prepare for the Franco- Scottish invasion of England.
The result was that the Protestants rose in open re-
bellion (June 1559). The Lords of the Congregation
occupied Perth, Stirling, and Edinburgh. All over
the Lowlands abbeys were wrecked, monks harried,
churches cleared of images, the Mass abolished, and
King Edward's service established in its place. In
England the various changes of religion in the last
thirty years had always been effected legally by King
and Parliament. In Scotland the Catholic Church
was overthrown by a simultaneous popular outbreak.
in FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 25
The catastrophe came later than in England ; but
popular feeling was more prepared for it; and what
was now cast down was never set up again.
It seemed at first as if the Regent and her handful
of regular troops, commanded by d'Oysel, would be
swept away. But d'Oysel had fortified Leith, and
was even able to take the field. A French army was
expected. The tumultuary forces of the needy Scotch
nobles could not be kept together long, and it became
clear that, unless supported by Elizabeth, the rebellion
would be crushed as soon as the French reinforcements
should arrive, if not sooner.
Thus early did Elizabeth find herself confronted by
the Scottish difficulty, which was to cause her so much
anxiety throughout the greater part of her reign. The
problem, though varying in minor details, was always
essentially the same. There was a Protestant faction
looking for support to England, and a Catholic faction
looking to France. Two or three of the Protestant
leaders Moray, Glencairn, Kirkaldy did really care
something about a religious reformation. The rest
thought more of getting hold of Church lands and
pursuing old family feuds. In the experience of
Elizabeth, they were a needy, greedy, treacherous crew,
always sponging on her treasury, and giving her very
little service in return for her money. Besides, the
whole Scotch nation was so touchy in its patriotism,
so jealous of foreign interference, that foreign soldiers
present on its soil were sure to be regarded with an
evil eye, no matter for what purpose they had come,
or by whom they had been invited.
The Lords of the Congregation invoked the pro-
26 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
tection of Elizabeth. They suggested that she should
marry the Earl of Arran, and that he and she should
be King and Queen of Great Britain. Arran was the
eldest son of the Duke of Chatelherault, who, Mary
being as yet childless, was heir-presumptive to the
Scottish crown. There were many reasons why Eliza-
beth should decline interference. It was throwing
down the glove to France. Interference in Scotland
had always been disastrous. It might drive the Eng-
lish Catholics to despair, as cutting off the hope of
Mary's succession to the English crown. To make a
Protestant match would irritate Philip. He might
invade England to forestall the French. Almost all
her Council even Bacon advised her to leave Scot-
land alone, marry the Archduke Charles, and trust to
the Spanish alliance for the defence of England.
These were serious considerations; and to them
was to be joined another which with Elizabeth always
had great weight more, naturally, than it had with
any of her advisers. She shrank from doing anything
which might have the practical effect of weakening the
common cause of monarchs. She felt instinctively
that with Protestants reverence for the religious basis
of kingship must tend to become weaker than with
Catholics. She did not desire to encourage this ten-
dency or to familiarise her own subjects with it
Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet against the Mon-
strous Regimen of Women had been directed against
Mary. The Blasts that were to follow had been
dropped ; but the first could not be treated as un-
blown. And the arrogant preacher did not mend
matters by writing to Elizabeth that she was to con-
m FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 27
sider her case as an exception "contrary to nature,"
allowed by God "for the comfort of His kirk," but
that if she based her title on her birth or on law,
" her felicity would be short."
Nevertheless Elizabeth adopted the bolder course.
The Lords of the Congregation were assured that Eng-
land would not see them crushed by French arms.
A small supply of money was sent to them. As to
the marriage with Arran, no positive answer was given ;
but he was sent for to be looked at. When he came,
he was found to be even a poorer creature than his
father; at times, indeed, not quite right in his mind.
It was hard upon the Hamiltons, among whom were
so many able and daring men, that, with the crown
almost in their grasp, their chiefs should be such in-
capables. To Elizabeth it was no doubt a relief to
find that Arran was an impossible husband.
In the meantime 2000 French had arrived, and the
Lords were urgent in their demands for help. But
Elizabeth determined, and rightly, that they must do
their own work if they could. She was willing to
give them such pecuniary help as was necessary. But
the demand for troops was unreasonable. Fighting
men abounded in Scotland. Why should English
troops be sent to do their fighting for them, with the
certainty of earning black looks rather than thanks 1
If a large army was despatched from France, she would
attack it with her fleet. If it landed, she would send
an English army. But if the Lords of the Congrega-
tion did not beat the handful of Frenchmen at Leith
it must be because they were either weak or treacher-
ous. In either case Elizabeth might have to give up
28 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
the policy she preferred, leave Scotland alone, and fall
back upon an alliance with Philip.
In order therefore to preserve this second string to
her bow, and to let the Scotch Anglophiles see that
she possessed it, she reopened negotiations for the
Austrian marriage. Charles, in his turn, was invited
to come and be looked at. Much as she disliked the
idea of marriage, she knew that political reasons might
make it necessary. But, come what would, she would
never marry a man who was not to her fancy as a
man. She would take no one on the strength of his
picture. She had heard that Charles was not over-
wise, and that he had an extraordinarily big head,
" bigger than the Earl of Bedford's."
The Scotch Lords, finding that Elizabeth was de-
termined to have some solid return for her money,
went to work with more vigour. They proclaimed
the deposition of the Regent, drove her from Edin-
burgh, and besieged her and her French garrison in
Leith. But this burst of energy was soon over. The
Protestants were more ready to pull down images and
harry monks than make campaigns. Leith was not to
be taken. In three weeks their army dwindled away,
and the little disciplined force of Frenchmen re-entered
Edinburgh.
The position had become very critical for Elizabeth.
A French army of 15,000 men was daily expected at
Leith. If once it landed, the Congregation would be
crushed ; the Hamiltons would make their peace ; and
the disciplined army of d'Elbceuf, swelled by hordes
of hungry Scotchmen, would pour over the Border.
and proclaim Mary in the midst of the Catholic popu-
ill FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 29
lation which ten years later rose in rebellion under
the northern Earls.
In this difficulty the Spanish Ministers in the
Netherlands were consulted. If Elizabeth expelled
the garrison at Leith, and so brought upon herself a
war with France, could she depend on Philip's assist-
ance? The reply was menacing. Their master, for
his own interest, could not allow the Queen of France
and Scotland to enforce her title to the throne of
England. But he would oppose it in his own way.
If a French army entered England from the north, a
Spanish army would land on the south coast. Turning
to her own Council for advice, Elizabeth found no
encouragement. They recommended her to take
Philip's advice, and even to retrace some of her steps
in the matter of religion in order to propitiate him.
She made a personal appeal to the Duke of Norfolk to
take the command of the forces on the Border. But
he declined to be the instrument of a policy which
he disapproved.
We need not wonder if Elizabeth hesitated for a
while. Some of these councillors were not too well
affected to her. But most of them were thoroughly
loyal, and there was really much to be said for the
more cautious policy. She herself was an eminently
cautious politician, inclined by nature to shrink from
risky courses. Never, therefore, in her whole career
did she give greater proof of her large-minded com-
prehension of the main lines of policy which it be-
hoved her to follow than when she determined to
override the opinions of so many prudent advisers,
and expel the French force from the northern kingdom.
30 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
England was not quite in the helpless, disabled
position that it pleased the Spaniards to believe.
Twelve months of careful and energetic administration
had already done wonders. There had been wise
economy and wise expenditure. Money had been
scraped together, and, though there was still a heavy
debt, the legacy of three wasteful reigns, the confidence
of the Antwerp money-lenders had revived, and they
were willing to advance considerable sums. A fleet
had been equipped and manned ; shiploads of arms
had been imported ; forces had been collected on
the south coasts. The Border garrisons had been
quietly raised in strength till they were able to furnish
an expeditionary force at a moment's notice.
The smallest energy on the part of the Congregation
might have finished the war without the presence of
an English force. Elizabeth had a right to be angry.
The Scotch Protestants expected to have the hardest
part of the work done for them, and to be paid for
executing their own share of it. Lord James and a
few of the leaders were in earnest, but others were
selfish time-servers. As for the lower class, their
Calvinism was still new. It had not yet bred that
fierce spirit of independence which before long was to
outweigh the force of nobles and gentry. But if the
weakness of the Anglophile party was disappointing, it
had at all events shown that Elizabeth must depend
upon herself to ward off danger on that side; and
after some reasonable hesitation she decided to put
through the work she had begun.
It says much for the patriotism of Elizabeth's Coun-
cil that when they found she had made up her mind
in FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 31
they did not stand sulkily aloof, but co-operated heartily
and vigorously in carrying out the policy they had
opposed. Norfolk himself accepted the command oi
the Border army, and acted throughout the affair with
fidelity and diligence. He was not a man distinguished
by ability of any kind, and the actual fighting was to
be done by Lord Grey, a firm and experienced, though
not brilliant, commander. But that the natural leader
of the Conservative nobility should be seen at the
head of Elizabeth's army was a useful lesson to traitors
at home and enemies abroad, who were telling each
other that her throne was insecure.
An agreement between the English Queen and the
Lords of the Congregation was drawn up (February
27), with scrupulous care to avoid the appearance of
dictation and encroachment which had gathered all
Scotland to Pinkie Cleugh eleven years before. It set
forth that the English troops were entering Scotland
for no other object than to assist the Duke of Chatel-"
herault, the heir-presumptive to the throne, and the
other nobles, to drive out the foreign invaders. They
would build no fortress. There was no intention to
prejudice Mary's lawful authority. Cecil appears to
have wanted to add something about " Christ's true
religion ; " but Elizabeth struck it out. Circumstances
might compel her to be the protector of foreign
Protestants ; but neither then nor at any other time
did she desire to pose in that character.
A month later (March 28th) Lord Grey crossed the
Border, and marched to Leith. The siege of that place
proved to be tedious. The Lords of the Congregation
gave very insufficient assistance ; and, when an assault
32 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
had been repulsed with heavy loss, the citizens of
Edinburgh would not receive the wounded into their
houses. At last, when food was running short in the
town, an envoy from France arrived with power to
treat on behalf of the Queen of Scots. Her mother,
the Eegent, had died during the siege. After much
haggling a treaty was signed. No French troops were
in future to be kept in Scotland. Offices of State
were to be held only by natives. The government
during Mary's absence was to be vested in a Council
of twelve noblemen ; seven nominated by her and five
by the Estates. Elizabeth's title to the kingdoms of
England and Ireland was recognised (July 1560).
Such was the Treaty of Edinburgh, or of Leith, as
it is sometimes called, one o f the most successful
achievements of a successful reign. It was gained by
wise counsel and bold resolve ; and its fruits, though
not completely fulfilling its promise, were solid and
valuable. It was not ratified by Mary. But her non-
ratification in the long-run injured no one but herself,
besides putting her in the wrong, and giving Eliza-
beth a standing excuse for treating her as an enemy.
England was permanently free from the menace of a
disciplined French army in the northern kingdom.
Nothing was settled in the treaty about religion.
But this was equivalent to a confirmation of the violent
change that had recently taken place; in itself a
guarantee of security to England.
The moral effect of this success was even greater
than its more tangible results. It had been very
generally believed, at all events abroad, that Elizabeth
was tottering on her throne ; that the large majority
m FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563
were on the point of rising to depose her; that,
wriggle as she might, she would find she was a mere
prottgte of Philip, with no option but to follow his
directions and square her policy to his. Whatever
small basis of fact underlay this delusive estimate had
been ridiculously exaggerated in the reports sent to
Philip by. his ambassador De Quadra, a man who
evidently paid more attention to hole-and-corner tattle
than to the broad forces of English politics.
All these imaginings were now proved to be vain.
Elizabeth had shown that she could protect herself by
her own strength and in her own way. She had civilly
ignored Philip's advice, or rather his injunctions. She
had thrown down the glove to France, and France had
not taken it up. She had placed in command of her
armies the very man whom she was supposed to fear, and
he had done her bidding, and done it well. England
once more stood before Europe as an independent
power, able to take care of itself, aid its friends, and
annoy its enemies.
It is true that, as far as Elizabeth personally is con-
cerned, her Scotch policy had not always in its execu-
tion been as prompt and firm as could be desired.
Those who follow it in greater detail than is possible
here will find much in it that is irresolute and even
vacillating. This defect appears throughout Elizabeth's
career, though it will always be ignored, as it ought
to be ignored, by those who reserve their attention for
what is worth observing in the course of human affairs.
In her intellectual grasp of European politics as a
whole, and of the interests of her own kingdom, Eliza-
beth was probably superior to any of her counsellors.
34 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
No one could better than she think out the general
idea of a political campaign. But theoretical and
practical qualifications are seldom, if ever, combined in
equal excellence. Not only are the qualities them-
selves naturally opposed, but the constant exercise of
either increases the disparity. Her sex obliged
Elizabeth to leave the large field of execution to
others. Her practical gifts therefore, whatever they
were, deteriorated rather than advanced as she grew
older. In men, who every day and every hour of the
day are engaged in action, the habit of prompt decision
and persistence in a course once adopted, even if it
be not quite the best, is naturally formed and strength-
ened. It is a habit so valuable, so indispensable to
continued success, that in practice it largely compen-
sates for some inferiority in conception and design.
Elizabeth's irresolution and vacillation were therefore
a consequence of her position that of an extremely
able and well-informed woman called upon to conduct
a government in which so much had to be decided by
the sovereign at her own discretion. The abler she
was, the more disposed to make her will felt, the less
steadiness and consistency in action were to be expected
from her. As the wife of a king, upon whom the
final responsibility would have rested her inferior per-
haps in intellect and knowledge, but with the masculine
habit of making up his mind once for all, and then
steering a straight course she would have been a wise
and enlightened adviser, not afraid of consistently
maintaining principles, when the time, mode, and
degree of their application rested with another. As
it was, Cecil and other able statesmen who served her
m FOREIGN RELATIONS: 1559-1563 35
had not only to take their general course of policy
from their mistress a wise course upon the whole,
wiser sometimes than they would have selected for
themselves but they were embarrassed, in their loyal
attempts to steer in the direction she had prescribed,
by her nervous habit of catching at the rudder-lines
whenever a new doubt occurred to her ingenious mind,
or some private feeling of the woman perverted the
clear insight of the sovereign.
The rivalry between France and Spain had hitherto
been the safety of England. Nothing but reasons of
religion could bring those two powers to suspend their
political quarrel. This danger seemed to be averted
for the moment by the temporary ascendant of the
Politiques after the death of Francis n. But the
fanaticism of both Catholics and Huguenots was too
bitter, and the nobles on both sides were too ambitious,
to listen to the dictates of reason and patriotism. The
immense majority of the. nation, except in some districts
of the south and south-west, was profoundly Catholic.
The Huguenots, strongest amongst the aristocracy and
the upper bourgeoisie, daring and intolerant like the
Calvinists everywhere, had no sooner received some
countenance from Catherine than they began to preach
against the mass, to demand the spoliation of the
Church, the suppression of monasteries, the destruc-
tion of images, and the expulsion of the Guises.
Where they were strong enough they began to carry
out their programme. The Guises, on the other hand,
forgetting the glory they had won in the wars against
Spain, were soliciting the patronage of Philip, and
urging him to put himself at the head of a crusade
36 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
against the heretics of all countries. To this appeal
he replied by formally summoning Catherine to put
down heresy in France. An accidential collision at
Vassy, in which a number of Huguenots were slain,
brought on the first of those wars of religion which
were to desolate France for the next thirty years
(March 1562). Both factions, equally dead to patriot-
ism, opened their country to foreigners. The Guises
called in the forces of Spain and the Pope. Cond6
applied to Elizabeth and the Protestant princes of
Germany.
It was necessary to give the Huguenots just so
much help as would prevent them from being crushed.
Aggressive in appearance, such interference was in
reality legitimate self-defence. But unfortunately neither
Elizabeth nor her Council had forgotten Calais, and
they extorted from Conde the surrender of Havre as
a pledge for its restoration. In the case of Scotland
they had come, as we have seen, to recognise that to
establish a permanent raw by holding fortified posts
on the territory of another nation is poor statesman-
ship. The possession of Calais was of little military
value as against France. It is true that it would
enable England to make sea communication between
Spain and the Netherlands very insecure, and would
thus give Philip a powerful motive for desiring to
stand well with this country. But such a calculation
had less weight with Englishmen at that moment than
pure Jingoism the longing to be again able to crow
over their French enemy.
The occupation of Havre (October 1562) gave to
the Huguenot cause the minimum of assistance, and
in FOREIGN RELATIONS : 1559-1563 37
brought upon it the maximum of odium. A hollow
reconciliation was soon patched up between the rival
factions (March 1563), and Elizabeth was summoned
to evacuate Havre. She refused, loudly complaining
of the Huguenots for deserting her. She " had come
to the quiet possession of Havre without force or any
other unlawful means, and she had good reason to keep
it." Up to this time the fiction of peace between the
two nations had been maintained. It was now open
war. It is only fair to Elizabeth to say that all her
Council and the whole nation were even hotter than
she was. The garrison of Havre, with their commander
Warwick, were eager for the fray. They would " make
the French cock cry Cuck," they would " spend the
last drop of their blood before the French should fasten
a foot in the town." The inhabitants were all expelled,
and the siege began, Conde as well as the Catholics
appearing in the Queen-mother's army. After a
valiant defence the English, reduced to a handful of
men by typhus, sailed away (July 28, 1563). Peace
was concluded early in the next year (April 1564).
Elizabeth did not repeat her mistake. Thenceforward
to the end of her reign we shall find her carefully
cultivating friendly relations with every ruler of
France.
CHAPTER IV
ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART: 1559-1568
WHEN Elizabeth mounted the throne, it was taken for
granted that she was to marry, and marry with the
least possible delay. This was expected of her, not
merely because in the event of her dying without issue
there would be a dispute whether the claim of Mary
Stuart or that of Catherine Grey was to prevail, but for
a more general reason. The rule of an unmarried woman,
except provisionally during such short interval as
might be necessary to provide her with a husband, was
regarded as quite out of the question. It was the custom
for the husbands of heiresses to step into the property
of their wives and stand in the shoes, so to speak, of
the last male proprietor, in order to perform those
duties which could not be efficiently performed by a
woman. Elizabeth's sister, while a subject, had no
thought of marrying. But her accession was considered
by herself and every one else to involve marriage. If
the nobles of England could have foreseen that Eliza-
beth would elude this obligation, she would probably
never have been allowed to mount the throne. Her mar-
riage was thought to be as much a matter of course,
arid as necessary, as her coronation.
38
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART: 1559-1568 39
Accordingly the House of Commons, which met a
month after her accession, immediately requested her
to select a husband without delay. Her declaration
that she had no desire to change her state was supposed
to indicate only the real or affected coyness to be
expected from a young lady. There was no lack of
suitors, foreign or English. The Archduke Charles,
son of the Emperor and cousin of Philip, would have
been welcomed by all Catholics and acquiesced in by
political Protestants like Cecil. The ardent Protes-
tants were eager for Arran, and Cecil, till he saw it was
useless, worked his best for him, regardless of the
personal sacrifice his mistress must make in wedding
a man who was not always quite sane and eventually
became a confirmed lunatic.
Not many months of the new reign had passed
before it began to be suspected that Elizabeth's par-
tiality for Lord Eobert Dudley had something to do
with her evident distaste for all her suitors. To her
Ministers and the public this partiality for a married
man became a cause of great disquietude. They not
unnaturally feared that with a young woman who had
no relations to advise and keep watch over her, it
might lead to some disastrous scandal incompatible
with her continuance on the throne. Marriage with
Dudley at this time was out of the question. But
within four months of her accession, the Spanish
ambassador mentions a report that Dudley's wife had
a cancer, and that the Queen was only waiting for her
death to marry him.
About the humble extraction of Elizabeth's favourite
much nonsense was talked in his lifetime by his ill-
40 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
wishers, and has been duly repeated since. He was as
well born as most of the peerage of that time ; very
few of whom could show nobility of any antiquity in
the male line. The Duke of Norfolk being the only
Duke at Elizabeth's accession, and in possession of an
ancient title, was looked on as the head of his order.
Yet it was only seventy-five years since a Howard had
first reached the peerage in consequence of having had
the good fortune to marry the heiress of the Mowbrays.
Edmund Dudley, Minister of Henry vii. and father of
Northumberland, was grandson of John, fourth Lord
Dudley; and Northumberland, by his mother's side,
was sole heir and representative of the ancient barony
of De L'Isle, which title he bore before he received his
earldom and dukedom. In point of wealth and in-
fluence, indeed, the favourite might be called an upstart.
The younger son of an attainted father, he had not an
acre of land or a farthing of money which he did not
owe either to his wife or to the generosity of Elizabeth.
This it was that moved the sneers and ill-will of a
people with whom nobility has always been a composite
idea implying, not only birth and title, but territorial
wealth. Moreover his grandfather, though of good
extraction, was a simple esquire, and had risen by
helping Henry vii. to trample on the old nobility.
After his fall his son had climbed to power under
Henry vin. and Edward VI. in the same way. Lord
Robert Dudley, again, had to begin at the bottom of the
ladder.
No one will claim for Elizabeth's favourite that he
was a man of distinguished ability or high character.
He had a fine figure and a handsome face. He bore
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 41
himself well in manly exercises. His manners were
attractive when he wished to please. To these qualities
he first owed his favour with Elizabeth, who was never
at any pains to conceal her liking for good-looking men
and her dislike of ugly ones. Finding himself in favour,
and inheriting to the full the pushing audacity of his
father and grandfather, he professed for the Queen a
love which he certainly did not feel, in order to serve
his soaring ambition. Elizabeth, it is my firm conviction,
never loved Dudley or any other man, in any sense of
the word, high or low. She had neither a tender heart
nor a sensual temperament. But she had a more than
feminine appetite for admiration; and the more she
was, unhappily for herself, a stranger to the emotion of
love, the more restlessly did she desire to be thought
capable of inspiring it. She was therefore easily taken
in by Dudley's professions, and, though she did not care
for him enough to marry him, she liked to have him
as well as several other handsome men, dangling about
her, "like her lap-dog," to use her own expression.
Further she believed and here came in the mischief
that his devotion to her person would make him a
specially faithful servant.
We know, though Elizabeth did not, that in 1561,
Dudley was promising the Spanish ambassador to be
Philip's humble vassal, and to do his best for Catholi-
cism, if Philip would promote his marriage with the
Queen ; that, in the same year, he was offering his
services to the French Huguenots for the same con-
sideration ; that at one time he posed as the protector
of the Puritans, while at another he was intriguing
with the captive Queen of Scots ; whom, again, later
42 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAI-.
on, he had a chief share in bringing to the block. But
we must remember that very few statesmen, English or
foreign, in the sixteenth century could have shown a re-
cord free from similar blots. Those who, like Elizabeth
and Cecil, were undeniably actuated on the whole by
public spirit, or by any principle more respectable than
pure selfishness, never hesitated to lie or play a double
game when it seemed to serve their turn. William of
Orange is the only eminent statesman, as far as I know,
against whom this charge cannot be made. When this
was the standard of honour for consistent politicians
and real patriots, what was to be expected of lower
natures 1 Dudley's conduct on several occasions was
bad and contemptible ; and he must be judged with
the more severity, because he sinned not only against
the code of duty binding on the ordinary man and
citizen, but against his professions of a tender senti-
ment by means of which he had acquired his special
influence. I have said that he was not a man of
great ability. But neither was he the empty-headed
incapable trifler that some writers have depicted him.
He was not so judged by his contemporaries. That
Elizabeth, because she liked him, would have selected
a man of notorious incapacity to command her armies,
both in the Netherlands and when the Armada was
expected, is one of those hypotheses that do not become
more credible by being often repeated. Cecil himself,
when it was not a question of the marriage of which
he was a determined opponent regarded him as a
useful servant of the Queen. I do not doubt that
Elizabeth estimated his capacity at about its right
value. What she over-estimated was his affection for
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART: 1559-1568 43
herself, and consequently his trustworthiness. Sove-
reigns and others often place a near relative in an
important post, not as being the most capable person
they know, but as most likely to be true to them.
Elizabeth had no near relatives. If we grant as we
must grant that she believed in Dudley's love, we
cannot wonder that she employed him in positions of
trust. A female ruler will always be liable to make
these mistakes, unless her Ministers and captains are
to be of her own sex.
On the 3rd of September 1560, two months after
the Treaty of Leith, Elizabeth told De Quadra that she
had made up her mind to many the Archduke Charles.
On the 8th, Lady Robert Dudley died at Cumnor Hall.
On the llth, Elizabeth told De Quadra that she had
changed her mind. Dudley neglected his wife, and
never brought her to court. We cannot doubt that
he fretted under a tie which stood in the way of his
ambition. Her death had been predicted. It is not
strange, therefore, that he should have been suspected
of having caused it. Nevertheless, not a particle of
evidence pointing in that direction has ever been
produced, and it seems most probable that the poor
deserted creature committed suicide. A coroner's jury
investigated the case diligently, and, it would seem, with
some animus against Foster, the owner of. Cumnor Hall,
but returned a verdict of accidental death.
Anyhow, Dudley was now free. The Scotch Estates
were eagerly pressing Arran's suit, and the English
Protestants were as eagerly backing them. The op-
portunity was certainly unique. Though nothing was
said about deposing Mary, yet nothing could be more
44 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
certain than that, if this marriage took place, the
Queen of France would never reign in Scotland.
At her wits' end how to escape a match so desirable
for the Queen, so repulsive to the woman, Elizabeth
had announced her willingness to espouse the Archduke
in order to gain a short breathing-time. Vienna was
at least further than Edinburgh, and difficulties were
sure to arise when details began to be discussed. At
this moment, by the sudden death of his wife, Dudley
became marriageable. If Elizabeth had been free to
marry or not. as she pleased, it seems to me in the
highest degree improbable that she would ever have
thought of taking Dudley. But believing that a hus-
band was inevitable, and expecting that she would be
forced to take some one who was either unknown to
her or positively distasteful, it was most natural that
she should ask herself whether it was not the least
of evils to put this cruel persecution to an end by
choosing a man whom at least she admired and liked,
who loved her, as she thought, for her own sake, and
would be as obedient " as her lap-dog." When nations
are ruled by women, and marriageable women, feelings
and motives which belong to the sphere of private
life, and should be confined to it, are apt to invade
the domain of politics. If Elizabeth's subjects expected
their sovereign to suppress all personal feelings in
choosing a consort, they ought to have established the
Salic law. No woman, queen or not queen, can be
expected voluntarily to make such a sacrifice. Her
happiness is too deeply involved.
In the autumn, then, of 1560, when Elizabeth had
been not quite two years on the throne, she seriously
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 45
thought of marrying Dudley. It is difficult to say
how long she continued to think of it seriously. With
him, as with other suitors, she went on coquetting
when she had perfectly made up her mind that nothing
was to come of it. Perhaps we shall be right in say-
ing that, as long as there was any question of the
Archduke Charles, she looked to Dudley as a possible
refuge. This would be till about the beginning of
1568. It seems to be always assumed, as a matter of
course, that Cecil played the part of Elizabeth's good
genius in persistently dissuading her from marrying
Dudley. I am not so sure of this. If she had been a
wife and a mother many of her difficulties would have
at once disappeared, and the weakest points in her
character would have no longer been brought out. It
ended in her not marrying at all. I am inclined to
think that another enemy of Dudley, the Earl of
Sussex, showed more good sense and truer patriotism
when he wrote in October 1560 :
" I wish not her Majesty to linger this matter of so great
importance, but to choose speedily ; and therein to follow so
much her own affection as [that], by the looking upon him
whom she should choose, omnes ejus xensus titillarentur ; which
shall be the readiest way, with the help of God, to bring us a
blessed prince which shall redeem us out of thraldom. If I
knew that England had other rightful inheritors I would then
advise otherwise, and seek to serve the time by a husband's
choice [seek for an advantageous political alliance]. But seeing
that she is ultimum refugium, and that no riches, friendship,
foreign alliance, or any other present commodity that might
come by a husband, can serve our turn, without issue of her
body, if the Queen will love anybody, let her love where and
whom she lists, so much thirst I to see her love. And whom-
soever she shall love and choose, him will I love, honour, and
serve to the uttermost. "
46 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
Perhaps I may be excused for expressing the opinion
that the ideal husband for Elizabeth, if it had been
possible, would have been Lord James Stuart, after-
wards Earl of Moray. Of sufficient capacity, kindly
heart, undaunted resolution, and unswerving rectitude
of purpose, he would have supplied just those ele-
ments that were wanting to correct her defects.
King of Scotland he perhaps could not be. Regent
of Scotland he did become. If he could, at the same
time, have been Elizabeth's husband, the two crowns
might have, in the next generation, been worn by
a Stuart of a nobler stock than the son of Mary and
Darnley.
When Mary Stuart, on the death of her husband
Francis II., returned to her own kingdom (August
1561), she found the Scotch nobles sore at the re-
jection of Arran's suit. Bent on giving a sovereign
to England, in one way or another, they were now
ready, Protestants as well as Catholics, to back Mary's
demand that she should be recognised as Elizabeth's
heir-presumptive. To this the English Queen could
not consent, for the very sufficient reason, that not
only would the Catholic party be encouraged to hold
together and give trouble, but the more bigoted and
desperate members of it would certainly attempt her
life, lest she should disappoint Mary's hopes by marry-
ing. "She was not so foolish," she said, "as to hang
a winding-sheet before her eyes or make a funeral
feast whilst she was alive," but she promised that she
would neither do anything nor allow anything to be
done by Parliament to prejudice Mary's title. To
this undertaking she adhered long after Mary's hostile
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART: 1559-1568 47
conduct had given ample justification for treating her
as an enemy.
Openly Mary was claiming nothing but the succes-
sion. In reality she cared little for a prospect so
remote and uncertain. What she was scheming for
was to hurl Elizabeth from her throne. This was an
object for which she never ceased to work till her head
was off her shoulders. Her aims were more sharply
defined than those of Elizabeth, and she was remark-
ably free from that indecision which too often marred
the action of the English Queen. In ability and in-
formation she was not at all inferior to Elizabeth ; in
promptitude and energy she was her superior. These
masculine qualities might have given her the victory
in the bitter duel, but that, in the all-important do-
main of feeling, her sex indomitably asserted itself, and
weighted her too heavily to match the superb self-
control of Elizabeth. She could love and she could
hate; Elizabeth had only likes and dislikes, and
therefore played the cooler game. When Mary really
loved, which was only once, all selfish calculations
were flung to the winds ; she was ready to sacrifice
everything, and not count the cost body and soul,
crown and life, interest and honour. When she hated,
which was often,, rancour was apt to get the better of
prudence. And so at the fatal turning-point of her
career, when mad hate and madder love possessed her
soul, she went down before her great rival never to
rise again. Here was a woman indeed. And if, for
that reason, she lost the battle in life, for that reason
too she still disputes it from the tomb. She has
always had, and always will have, the ardent sympathy
48 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
of a host of champions, to whom the " fair vestal
throned by the west " is a mere politician, sexless, cold-
blooded, and repulsive.
In 1564 Mary, as yet fancy-free, was seeking to
match herself on purely political grounds. She was
not so fastidious as Elizabeth, for she does not seem
to have troubled herself at all about personal qualities,
if a match seemed otherwise eligible. The Hamiltons
pressed Arran upon her. But he was a Protestant.
He was not heir to any throne but that of Scotland ;
and, though a powerful family in Scotland, the Hamil-
tons could give her no help elsewhere. Philip, who,
now that the Guises had become his prottgfa, was less
jealous of her designs, wished her to marry his cousin,
the Archduke Charles of Austria. But this prince,
whom Elizabeth professed to find too much of a
Catholic, was, in the eyes of Mary and her more
bigoted co-religionists, too nearly a Lutheran ; and she
doubted whether Philip cared enough for him to risk
a war for establishing him and herself upon the Eng-
lish throne. For this reason the husband on whom
she had set her heart was Don Carlos, Philip's own
son, a sort of wild beast. But Philip received her
overtures doubtfully ; the fact being that he could not
trust Don Carlos, whom he eventually put to death.
Catherine de' Medici loved Mary as little as she did
the other Guises, but the prospect of the Spanish
match filled her with such terror that she proposed to
make the Scottish Queen her daughter-in-law a second
time by a marriage with Charles IX., a lad under
thirteen, if she would wait two years for him.
On the other hand, Elizabeth impressed upon Mary
rv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART: 1559-1568 49
that, unless she married a member of some Reformed
Church, the English Parliament would certainly de-
mand that her title to the succession, whatever it was,
should be declared invalid. The House of Commons
was strongly Protestant, and had with difficulty been
prevented from addressing the Queen in favour of the
succession of Lady Catherine Grey. Apart from re-
ligion there was deep irritation against the whole
Scotch nation. Sir Ralph Sadler, who had been much
employed in Scotland, denounced them as " false, beg-
garly, and perjured, whom the very stones in the
English streets would rise against." When Elizabeth
was dangerously ill in October 1562, the Council dis-
cussed whom they should proclaim in the event of her
death. Some were for the will of Henry VIII. and
Catherine Grey. Others, sick of female rulers, were
for taking the Earl of Huntingdon, a descendant of the
Duke of Clarence. None were for Mary or Darnley.
Mary's chief friends Montagu, Northumberland, West-
moreland, and Derby were not on the Council.
Parliament and the Council being against her, Mary
could not afford to quarrel with the Queen. Elizabeth
told her that she would regard a marriage with any
Spanish, Austrian, or French prince as a declaration
of war. Help from those quarters was far away, and
at the mercy of winds and waves : the Border for-
tresses were near, and their garrisons always ready
to inarch. Besides, whichever of the two she might
obtain Charles IX. or the Archduke she drove the
other into the arms of Elizabeth.
But there was another possible husband who had
crossed her mind from time to time ; not a prince
p
50 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
indeed, yet of royal extraction in the female line, and,
what was more, not without pretensions to that very
succession which she coveted. Henry Lord Darnley,
son of Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, was, by his
father's side, of the royal family of Scotland, while
his mother was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, sister
of Henry vin., by her second husband, the Earl of
Angus. Born and brought up in England, where his
father had been long an exile, he was reckoned as an
Englishman, which, in the opinion of many lawyers,
was essential as a qualification for the crown. He
was also a Catholic, and if Elizabeth had died at this
time, it was perhaps Darnley, rather than Mary, whom
the Catholics would have tried to place on the throne.
Elizabeth had promised that, if Mary would marry
an English nobleman, she would do her best to get
Mary's title recognised by Parliament. To Elizabeth,
therefore, Mary now turned, with the request that
she would point out such a nobleman, not without
a hope that she would name Darnley (March 1564).
But, to Mary's mortification, she formally recommended
Lord Robert Dudley.
This recommendation has often been treated as if
it was a sorry joke perpetrated by Elizabeth, who had
never any intention of furthering, or even permitting,
such a match. But nothing is more certain than that
Elizabeth was most anxious to bring it about; and
it affords a decisive proof that her feeling for Dudley,
whatever name she herself may have put to it, was
not what is usually called love. Cecil and all her
most intimate advisers entertained no doubt that she
was sincere. She undertook, if Mary would accept
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART: 1559-1568 51
Dudley, to make him a duke ; and, in the meantime,
she created him Earl of Leicester. She regarded him,
so she told Mary's envoy Melville, as her brother and
her friend ; if he was Mary's husband she would have
no suspicion or fear of any usurpation before her
death, being assured that he was so loving and trusty
that he would never permit anything to be attempted
during her time. " But," she said, pointing to Darnley,
who was present, "you like better yonder long lad."
Her suspicion was correct. Melville had secret in-
structions to procure permission for Darnley to go to
Scotland. However, he answered discreetly that " no
woman of spirit could choose such an one who more
resembled a woman than a man."
How was Elizabeth to be persuaded to let Darnley
leave England? There was only one way to disarm
suspicion : Mary declared herself ready to marry Leices-
ter (January 1565). Darnley immediately obtained
leave of absence for three months ostensibly to recover
the forfeited Lennox property. In Scotland the pur-
pose of his coming was not mistaken, and it roused
the Protestants to fury. The Queen's chapel, the only
place in the Lowlands where mass was said, was beset.
Her priests were mobbed and maltreated. Moray,
who till lately had supported his sister with such
loyalty and energy that Knox had quarrelled with
him, prepared, with the other Lords of the Congrega-
tion, for resistance. Elizabeth, and Cecil also, had
been completely overreached. A prudent player some-
times gets into difficulties by attributing equal pru-
dence to a daring and reckless antagonist. Elizabeth,
as a patriotic ruler, desired nothing but peace and
52 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
security for her own kingdom. If she could have that,
she had no wish to meddle with Scotland. Mary,
caring nothing for the interests of her subjects, was
facing civil war with a light heart; and, for the
chance of obtaining the more brilliant throne, was
ready to risk her own.
Undeterred by Elizabeth's threats, Mary married
Darnley (July 29, 1565). Moray and Argyll, having
obtained a promise of assistance from England, took
arms ; but most of the Lords of the Congregation
showed themselves even more powerless or perfidious
than they had been five years before. Morton, Kuth-
ven, and Lindsay, stoutest of Protestants, were related
to Darnley, and were gratified by the elevation of
their kinsman. Moray failed to elicit a spark of
spirit out of the priest-baiting citizens of Edinburgh,
and the Queen, riding steel cap on head and pistols
at saddle-bow, chased him into England. Lord Bed-
ford, who was in command at Berwick, could have
stepped across the Border and scattered her undis-
ciplined array without difficulty. He implored Eliza-
beth to let him do it; offered to do it on his own
responsibility, and be disavowed. But he found, to
his mortification, that she had been playing a game
of brag. She had hoped that a threatening attitude
would stop the marriage. But as it was an accom-
plished fact she was not going to draw the sword.
This was shabby treatment of Moray and his
friends, and to some of her councillors it seemed
not only shameful but dangerous to show the white
feather. But judging from the course of events,
Elizabeth's policy was the safe one. The English
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 53
Catholics some of them at all events, as will be
explained presently were becoming more discontented
and dangerous. The northern earls were known to
be disaffected. Mary believed that in every country
in England the Catholics had their organisation and
their leaders, and that, if she chose, she could march
to London. No doubt she was much deceived. In
reluctance to resort to violence and respect for con-
stituted authority, England, even north of the Humber,
was at least two centuries ahead of Scotland, and, if
she had come attended by a horde of savage High-
landers and Border ruffians, " the very stones in the
streets would have risen against them." It was
Elizabeth's rule and a very good rule too never
to engage in a war if she could avoid it. From this
rule she could not be drawn to swerve either by
passion or ambition, or that most fertile source of
fighting, a regard for honour. All the old objec-
tions to an invasion of Scotland still subsisted in
full strength, and were reinforced by others. It was
better to wait for an attack which might never come
than go half-way to meet it. An invasion of Scotland
might drive the northern earls to declare for Mary,
which, unless compelled to choose sides, they might
never do. Some people are more perturbed by the
expectation and uncertainty of danger than by its
declared presence. Not so Elizabeth. Smouldering
treason she could take coolly as long as it only
smouldered. As for the betrayal of the Scotch
refugees, Elizabeth never allowed the private interests
of her own subjects, much less those of foreigners,
to weigh against the interests of England. Moray
54 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
one of the most magnanimous and self-sacrificing of
statesmen, evidently felt that Elizabeth's course was
wise, if not exactly chivalrous. He submitted to her
public rebuke without publicly contradicting her, and
waited patiently in exile till it should be convenient
for her to help him and his cause. Mary, too, though
elated by her success, and never abandoning her in-
tention to push it further, found it best to halt for
a while. Philip wrote to her that he would help
her secretly with money if Elizabeth attacked her,
but not otherwise, and warned her against any pre-
mature clutch at the English crown. Elizabeth's
seeming tameness could hardly have received a more
complete justification.
Mary had determined to espouse Darnley, before
she had set eyes on him, for purely political reasons.
There is no reason to suppose she ever cared for him.
It is more likely, as Mr. Froude suggests, that for a
great political purpose she was doing an act which in
itself she loathed. A woman of twenty-two, already
a widow, mature beyond her years, exceptionally able,
absorbed in the great game of politics, and accustomed
to admiration, was not likely to care for a raw lad of
nineteen, foolish, ignorant, ill-conditioned, vicious, and
without a single manly quality. One man we know
she did love later on loved passionately and devotedly,
no slim girl-faced youngster, but the fierce, stout-limbed,
dare-devil Both well ; and Both well gradually made his
way to her heart by his readiness to undertake every
desperate service she required of him. What Mary
admired, nay envied, in the other sex was the stout
heart and the strong arm. She loved herself to rough
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 55
it on the war-path. She surprised Randolph by her
spirit: "Never thought I that stomach to be in her
that I find. She repented nothing but, when the
Lords and others came in the morning from the
watches, that she was not a man, to know what life
it was to lie all night in the fields or to walk upon
the causeway with a jack and a knapscap, a Glasgow
buckler and a broadsword." "She desires much,"
says Knollys, "to hear of hardiness and valiancy,
commending by name all approved hardy men of her
country, although they be her enemies ; and she con-
cealeth no cowardice even in her friends." Valuable
to Mary as a man of action, Bothwell was not worth
much as an adviser. For advice she looked to the
Italian Rizzio, in whom she confided because, with
the detachment of a foreigner, he regarded Scotch
ambitions, animosities, and intrigues only as so much
material to be utilised for the purpose of the combined
onslaught on Protestantism which the Pope was trying
to organise. Bothwell was at this time thirty, and
Rizzio, according to Lesley, fifty.
In spite of all the prurient suggestions of writers
who have fastened on the story of Mary's life as on a
savoury morsel, there is no reason whatever for think-
ing that she was a woman of a licentious disposition,
and there is strong evidence to the contrary. There
was never anything to her discredit in France. Her
behaviour in the affair of Chastelard was irreproach-
able. The charge of adultery with Rizzio is dismissed
as unworthy of belief even by Mr. Froude, the severest
of her judges. Bothwell indeed she loved, and, like
many another woman who does not deserve to be
56 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
called licentious, she sacrificed her reputation to the
man she loved. But the most conclusive proof that
she was no slave to appetite is afforded by her nine-
teen years' residence in England, which began when
she was only twenty-five. During almost the whole
of that time she was mixing freely in the society of
the other sex, with the fullest opportunity for mis-
conduct had she been so inclined. It is not to be
supposed that she was fettered by any scruples of
religion or morality. Yet no charge of unchastity is
made against her.
When Darnley found that his wife, though she
conferred on him the title of King, did not procure
for him the crown matrimonial or allow him the
smallest authority, he gave free vent to his anger.
No less angry were his kinsmen, Morton, Ruthven,
and Lindsay. They had deserted the Congregation
in the expectation that when Darnley was King they
would be all-powerful. Instead of this they found
themselves neglected; while the Queen's confidence
was given to Catholics and to Bothwell, who, though
nominally a Protestant, always acted with the Catho-
lics. The Protestant seceders had in fact fallen between
two stools. It was against Rizzio that their rage
burnt fiercest. Bothwell was only a bull-headed,
blundering swordsman. Eizzio was doubly detestable
to them as the brain of the Queen's clique and as a
low-born foreigner. Eizzio, therefore, they deter-
mined to remove in the time-honoured Scottish fashion.
Notice of the day fixed for the murder was sent to
the banished noblemen in England, so that they might
appear in Edinburgh immediately it was accomplished
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 57
Randolph, the English ambassador, and Bedford, who
commanded on the Border, were also taken into the
secret, and they communicated it to Cecil and Leicester.
It is unnecessary here to repeat the well-known
story of the murder of Bizzio. It was part of a large
scheme for bringing back the exiled Protestant lords,
closing the split in the Protestant party, and securing
the ascendancy of the Protestant religion. At first it
appeared to have succeeded. Bedford wrote to Cecil
that "everything would now go well." But Mary,
by simulating a return of wifely fondness, managed to
detach her weak husband from his confederates. By
his aid she escaped from their hands. Bothwell and
her Catholic friends gathered round her in arms. In
a few days she re-entered Edinburgh in triumph, and
Bizzio's murderers had to take refuge in England.
But if the Protestant stroke had failed, Mary was
obliged to recognise that her plan for re-establishing
the Catholic ascendancy in Scotland could not be
rushed in the high-handed way she had proposed as
a mere preliminary to the more important subjugation
of England. At the very moment when she seemed
to stand victorious over all opposition, the ground had
yawned under her feet, and, while she was dreaming of
dethroning Elizabeth, she had found herself a helpless
captive in the hands of her own subjects. The lesson
was a valuable one, and if she could profit by it her
prospects had never been so good. The barbarous
outrage of which, in the sixth month of pregnancy,
she had been the object could not but arouse wide-
spread sympathy for her. She had extricated herself
from her difficulties with splendid courage and clever-
58 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
ness. The loss of such an adviser as Bizzio was really
a stroke of luck for her. All she had to do was to
abandon, or at all events postpone, her design of re-
establishing the Catholic religion in Scotland, and to
discontinue her intrigues against Elizabeth.
Her prospects in England were still further improved
when she gave birth to a son (June 19, 1566). Once
more there was an heir-male to the old royal line, and,
as Elizabeth continued to evade marriage, most people
who were not fierce Protestants began to think it
would be more reasonable and safe to abide by the
rule of primogeniture than by the will of Henry VIII.,
sanctioned though it was by Act of Parliament. There
can be no doubt that this was the opinion and intention
of Elizabeth, though she strongly objected to having
anything settled during her own lifetime. But she
had herself gone a long way towards settling it by her
treatment of Mary's only serious competitor. Catherine
Grey had contracted a secret marriage with the Earl
of Hertford, son of the Protector Somerset. Her
pregnancy necessitated an avowal. The clergyman
who had married them was not forthcoming, and
Hertford's sister, the only witness, was dead. Eliza-
beth chose to disbelieve their story, though she would
not have been able to prove when, where, or by whom
her own father and mother had been married. She
had a right to be angry; but when she sent the
unhappy couple to the Tower, and caused her tool,
Archbishop Parker, to pronounce the union invalid
and its offspring illegitimate, she was playing Mary's
game. The House of Commons elected in 1563 was
still undissolved. It was strongly Protestant, and it
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 59
favoured Catherine's title even after her disgrace.
In its second session, in the autumn of 1566, it made
a determined effort to compel Elizabeth to marry, and
in the meanwhile to recognise Catherine as the heir-
presumptive. The zealous Protestants knew well that
the Peers were in favour of the Stuart title, and they
feared that a new House of Commons might agree
with the Peers. To get rid of their pertinacity
Elizabeth dissolved Parliament, not without strong
expressions of displeasure (Jan. 2, 1567). Cecil him-
self earned the thanks of Mary for his attitude on this
occasion. It cannot be doubted that he dreaded her
succession ; but he saw which way the tide was running,
and he thought it prudent to swim with it.
It was at this moment that Mary flung away all her
advantage, and entered on the fatal course which led to
her ruin. Her loathing for Darnley, her fierce desire
to avenge on him the insults and outrage she had
suffered, left no room in heart or mind for considera-
tions of policy. She would have been glad to obtain
a divorce. But the Catholic Church does not grant
divorce for misconduct after marriage. Some pretext
must be found for alleging that the marriage was null
from the beginning. This did not suit Mary. It
would have made her son illegitimate, and would have
placed her in exactly the position of Catherine Grey.
A mere separation a toro would not have suited
her any better, for it would not have enabled her to
contract another marriage.
When Mary's reliance on Both well grew into attach-
ment, when her attachment warmed into love, it is
impossible to fix with any exactness. Her infatuation
60 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
presented itself to him as a grand opening for his
daring ambition. A notorious profligate, he loved
her if the word is to be so degraded as much or
as little as he had loved twenty other women. What,
however, he desired in her case, was marriage. A
more sensible man would have foreseen that marriage
would mean certain ruin for himself and the Queen.
But he was accustomed to despise all difficulties in
his path, being intellectually incapable of measuring
them, and believing in nothing but audacity and brute
force. Husband of the Queen, why should he not be
master of the kingdom 1 Why not King ? When
such an idea had once occurred to Bothwell, Darnley's
expectancy of life would be much the same as that of
a calf in the presence of the butcher.
The wretched victim had alienated all his friends
among the nobility. Some owed him a deadly grudge
for his treachery. Others had been offended by his
insolence. To all he was an encumbrance and a
nuisance. Several, therefore, of the leading personages
were more or less engaged in the compact for
putting him out of the way. Moray, Argyll, and
Maitland offered to assist in ridding Mary of her
husband by way of a Protestant sentence of divorce,
on condition that Morton and his friends in exile
should be pardoned and recalled. The bargain was
struck, and Mary assented to it. Nothing was said
about murder. No one had any interest in murder
except Mary and Bothwell, whose project of marriage
was as yet unsuspected. At the same time, if Bothwell
liked to kill Darnley on his own responsibility, as no
doubt he made it pretty plain that he would why, so
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 61
much the better. It relieved the other lords of all
trouble. It was a simple, thorough, old-fashioned
expedient, which had never been attended with any
discredit in Scotland, and had only one inconvenience
that it usually saddled the murderer with a blood
feud. In the present case Lennox was the only peer
who would feel the least aggrieved ; and he was in no
condition to wage blood-feuds. Anyhow, that was
Both well's look-out.
So obvious was all this that it was hardly worth
while to observe secrecy except as to the exact occasion
and mode of execution. Many persons were more or
less aware of what was going to be done; but none
cared to interfere. Moray ' was an honourable and
conscientious man, if judged by the standard of his
environment the only fair way of estimating char-
acter. But Moray chose to leave Edinburgh the
morning before the deed ; and thought it sufficient
to be able to say afterwards that " if any man said he
was present when purposes [talk] were held in his
audience tending to any unlawful or dishonourable
end, he spoke wickedly and untruly." The inner circle
of the plot consisted of Bothwell, Argyll, Huntly,
Maitland, and Sir James Balfour.
That Darnley was murdered by Bothwell is not
disputed. That Mary was cognisant of the plot, and
lured him to the shambles, has been doubted by few
investigators at once competent and unbiassed. She
lent herself to this part not without compunction.
Bothwell had the advantage over her that the loved
has over the lover ; and he used it mercilessly for his
headlong ambition, hardly taking the trouble to pre-
62 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
tend that he cared for the unhappy woman who was
sacrificing everything for him. He in fact cared more
for his lawful wife, whom he was preparing to divorce,
and to whom he had been married only six months.
Mary was tormented by jealousy of her after the
divorce as well as before.
The murder of Darnley (Feb. 10, 1567) was uni-
versally ascribed to Mary at the time by Catholics as
well as Protestants at home and abroad, and it fatally
damaged her cause in England and the rest of Europe.
In Scotland itself such was the backward and bar-
barous state of the country it would probably not
have shaken her throne if she had followed it up with
firm and prudent government. She might even have
indulged her illicit passion for Both well, with little
pretence of concealment, if she had not advanced him
in place and power above his equals. There was
probably not a noble in Scotland, from Moray down-
wards, who would have scrupled to be her Minister.
The Protestant commonalty indeed, who with all the
national laxity as to the observance of the sixth
commandment, were shocked by any trifling with
the seventh, would no doubt have made their bark
heard. But their bite had not yet become formidable ;
and in any case they were not to be propitiated.
What brought sudden and irretrievable ruin on
Mary was not the murder of Darnley, but the in-
fatuation which made her the passive instrument
of Bothwell's presumptuous ambition. The lords,
Catholic and Protestant alike, allowed the murder
to pass uncondemned and unpunished ; but they
were furious when they found that Darnley had
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 63
only been removed to make room for Bothwell, and
that they were to have for their master a noble of
by no means the highest lineage, bankrupt in for-
tune, and generally disliked for his arrogant and
bullying demeanour. The project of marriage was
not disclosed till ten weeks after the murder (April
19, 1567). Five days later, Bothwell, fearing lest
he should be frustrated by public indignation or
interference from England, carried off the Queen, as
had been previously arranged between them. His
idea was that, when Mary had been thus publicly
outraged, it would be recognised as impossible that
she should marry any one but the ravisher. In this
coarse expedient, as in the clumsy means employed
for disposing of Darnley, we see the blundering fool-
hardiness of the man. The marriage ceremony was
performed as soon as Bothwell's divorce could be
managed (May 15). Just a month later Mary sur-
rendered to the insurgent lords at Carberry Hill, and
Bothwell, flying for his life, disappears from history.
The feelings with which Elizabeth had contem-
plated the course of events in Scotland during the
last six months were no doubt of a mixed nature.
At the beginning of 1567, her seven-years' duel with
Mary appeared to be ending in defeat. The last
bold thrust, aimed in her interest if not by her hand
the murder of Bizzio had not improved her posi-
tion. It seemed that she would soon be obliged to
make her choice between two equally dreaded alter-
natives: she must either recognise Mary as her heir
or take a husband. From this unpleasant dilemma
she was released by the headlong descent of her
64 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
rival in the first six months of 1567. But all other
feelings were soon swallowed up in alarm and indig-
nation at the spectacle of subjects in revolt against
their sovereign. As tidings came in rapid succes-
sion of Mary's surrender at Carberry Hill, of her
return to Edinburgh amidst the insults and threats
of the Calvinist mob, of her imprisonment at Loch
Leven, of the proposal to try and execute her, Eliza-
beth's anger waxed hotter, and she told the Scotch
lords in her most imperious tones that she could
not, and would not, permit them to use force with
their sovereign. If they deposed or punished her,
she would revenge it upon them. If they could not
prevail on her to do what was right, they must
"remit themselves to Almighty God, in whose hands
only princes' hearts remain."
This language, addressed as it was to the only
men in Scotland who were disposed to support the
English interest, was imprudent. In her fellow-feel-
ing for a sister sovereign, and her keen perception
of the revolutionary tendencies of the time, Elizabeth
spoilt an unique opportunity of placing her relations
with Scotland on a footing of permanent security, of
providing for the English succession in a way at once
advantageous to the nation and free from risk to
her own life, and lastly, of escaping from the con-
stant worry about her own marriage. She had seen
clearly enough what might be made of the situation.
Throgmorton had been despatched to Scotland
with instructions to do his best to get the infant
Prince confided to her care. Once in England, she
would virtually have adopted him. She would have
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 65
possessed a son and heir without the inconvenience of
marriage. To a Parliamentary recognition, indeed, of
his title she would assuredly not have consented. It
would have made him independent and dangerous.
But if he behaved well to her, his succession would
be more certain than any Act of Parliament could
make it. Mary, if released and restored to power,
would no longer be formidable. If she were de-
posed or put to death, Elizabeth would indirectly
govern Scotland, at all events, till James should be of
age.
This splendid opportunity Elizabeth lost by her
peremptory and domineering language. The old Scotch
pride took fire. The Anglophile lords, who would
have been glad enough to send the young Prince to
England, could not afford to appear less patriotic than
the Francophiles. Throgmorton's attempt to get hold
of James was as unsuccessful as that of the Protector
Somerset to get hold of James's mother had been
twenty years before. He was told that, before the
Prince could be sent to England, his title to the
English succession must be recognised ; a condition
which Elizabeth could not grant. Her claim that
Mary should be restored without conditions was
equally unacceptable to the Anglophile lords. They
might have been induced to release her if she would
have consented to give up Both well, or if they could
have caught and hanged him. But such was her
devotion to him, that no threats or promises availed
to shake it. It was in vain that they offered to pro-
duce letters of his to the divorced Lady Bothwel), in
which he assured her that he regarded her still as
E
66 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
his lawful wife, and Mary only as his concubine.
The unhappy Queen had been aware even before
her marriage as a pathetic letter to Bothwell
shows that her passionate love was not returned.
Two days after the marriage, his unkindness had
driven her to think of suicide. But nothing they
could say could shake her constancy. " She would
not consent by any persuasion to abandon the Lord
Bothwell for her husband. She would live and die
with him. If it were put to her choice to relinquish
her crown and kingdom or the Lord Bothwell, she
would leave her kingdom and dignity to go as a
simple damsel with him; and she will never consent
that he shall fare worse or have more harm than
herself. Let them put Bothwell and herself on board
ship to go wherever fortune might carry them." This
temper made it difficult for the Anglophile lords to
know what to do with the prisoner of Loch Leven.
They were disappointed and angry that Elizabeth,
instead of approving their enterprise, and sending
the money for which, as usual, they were begging,
should treat them as rebels, and even secretly urge
the Hamiltons to rescue Mary by force. The Hamil-
tons were in arms at Dumbarton. They wanted either
that the Prince should be proclaimed King, with the
Duke of Chatelherault for Regent, or that Mary should
be divorced from Bothwell and married to Lord John
Hamilton, the Duke's second son, and, in default of
the crazy Arran, his destined successor. With Argyll,
too, disgust at Mary's crime was tempered by a desire
to marry her to his brother. Lady Douglas of Loch
Leven herself, for whom Sir Walter Scott has invented
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 67
such magnificent tirades, desired nothing better than
to be her mother-in-law.
The prompt action of the confederate lords foiled
these schemes. By the threat of a public trial on
the charge of complicity in her husband's murder, or,
as her advocates believe, by the fear of instant death,
Mary was compelled to abdicate in favour of her son,
and to nominate Moray Regent (July 29, 1567).
Elizabeth would not recognise him; partly from a
natural fear lest she should be suspected of having
been in collusion with him all along, partly from
genuine abhorrence of such revolutionary proceedings.
The French Government, on the other hand, casting
principle and sentiment alike to the winds, courted
his alliance. He might keep his sister in prison, or
put her to death, or send her to be immured in a
French convent: only let him embrace the French
interests, and an army should be sent to support him
a Huguenot army if he did not like Catholics. But
Moray turned a deaf ear to these solicitations, and
waited patiently till Elizabeth's ill-humour should give
way to more statesmanlike considerations.
The escape of Mary from Loch Leven (May 2, 1568),
and the rising of the Hamiltons in her favour, were
largely due to the unfriendly attitude assumed by
Elizabeth to the Regent's government. After the
defeat of Langside (May 13) it would perhaps have
been difficult for the fugitive Queen to make her way
to France or Spain. But it was not the difficulty
which deterred her from making the attempt. Both
Catherine and Philip, later on, were disposed to be-
friend her, or, rather, to make use of her; but at
58 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
the time of her escape from Scotland, she had nothing
to expect from them but severity. Elizabeth was the
only sovereign who had tried to help her. Moreover,
Mary had always laboured under the delusion that
because most Englishmen regarded her as the next
heir to the crown, and a great many preferred the
old religion to the new, she had as good a party in
England as Elizabeth herself, if not a better. During
her prosperity, she had made repeated applications
to be allowed to visit the southern kingdom. She
was convinced that, if she once appeared on English
ground, Elizabeth's throne would be shaken ; and
Elizabeth's unwillingness to receive the visit had
confirmed her in her belief. If she now crossed the
Solway without waiting for the permission which she
had requested by letter, it was not because she was
hard pressed. The Regent had gone to Edinburgh
after the battle. At Dundrennan, among the Catholic
Maxwells, Lord Herries guaranteed her safety for
forty days ; and, at an hour's notice, a boat would
place her beyond pursuit. Her haste was rather
prompted by the expectation that Elizabeth, alarmed
by her application, would refuse to receive her.
To Elizabeth the arrival of the Scottish Queen was,
indeed, as unwelcome as it was unexpected. For ten
years she had governed successfully, because she had
managed to hold an even course between conflicting
principles and parties, and to avoid taking up a de-
cisive attitude on the most burning questions. The
very indecision, which was the weak spot in her
character, and which so fretted her Ministers, had, it
must be confessed, contributed something to the result.
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-X568 69
Cecil might groan over a policy of letting things drift.
But it may be doubted whether they had not often
drifted better than Cecil would have steered them if
he might have had his way. To do nothing is not,
indeed, the golden rule of statesmanship. But at that
time, England's peculiar position between France and
Spain, and between Calvinism and Catholicism, en-
abled her ruler to play a waiting game. This was
the general rule applicable to the situation. Elizabeth
apprehended it more clearly than her Ministers did,
and she fell back on it again and again, when they
flattered themselves that they had committed her to
a forward policy. It was safe. It was cheap. It re-
quired coolness and intrepidity qualities with which
Elizabeth was well furnished by nature. But it was
not spirited: it was not showy. Hence it has not
found favour with historians, who insist that it ought
to have ended in disaster. As a matter of fact,
England was carried safely through unparalleled dif-
ficulties; and, when all is said, Elizabeth is entitled
to be judged by the general result of her long reign.
Mary's arrival was unwelcome to Elizabeth, because
it seemed likely to force her hand. To do nothing
would be no longer possible. The Catholic nobles
and gentry of the north flocked to Carlisle to pay
court to the heiress of the English crown. It was
not that they believed her innocent of her husband's
murder. The suspicion of her complicity was at that
time universal. But they supposed that it would
never amount to more than a suspicion. They did
not expect that the charge would ever be formally
made. They were not aware that it could be sup-
70 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
ported by overwhelming evidence. Later on, when
the proofs were produced, they had already committed
themselves to her cause, and were bound not to be
convinced.
If the attitude of these Catholics be thought to in-
dicate some moral callousness, it may be fairly argued
that it was less cynical than that of Elizabeth herself,
who, while not unwilling that Mary should be sus-
pected, would not allow her to be convicted. Steady
to her main purpose, though hesitating, and even
vacillating, in the means she adopted, she still adhered,
notwithstanding all that had lately taken place, to her
intention that Mary, if her survivor, should be her
successor. Like all the greatest statesmen of her time,
she placed secular interests before religious opinions.
She was persuaded that the maintenance of the prin-
ciple of authority was all-important. Nothing else
could hold society together or prevent the rival fana-
ticisms from tearing each other to pieces. For
authority there was no other basis left than the
principle of hereditary succession by primogeniture.
This principle must, therefore, be treated as something
sacred not to be set aside or tampered with in a
short-sighted grasping at any seeming immediate
utility. To allow it to be called in question was to
shake her own title. Already, in France, the Jesuits
were preaching that orthodoxy and the will of the
people were the only legitimate foundation of sove-
reignty. Few English Catholics had learned that
doctrine; but they would not be slow to learn it il
the hereditary claim of Mary was to be set aside.
If Mary had been content to claim what primo-
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 71
geniture gave her the right to the succession there
would have been no quarrel between her and Eliza-
beth. But it was notorious that she had all along
been plotting to substitute herself for Elizabeth.
Never had she cherished that dream with more con-
fidence than when the Percys and Nevilles crowded
round her at Carlisle. In her sanguine imagination,
she already saw herself mistress of a finer kingdom
than that which had just expelled her, and marching,
at the head of her new subjects, to wreak vengeance
on her old ones. She seemed likely to be no less
dangerous as an exile in England than as a Queen in
Scotland.
Elizabeth had now reason to regret the unnecessary
warmth with which she had espoused Mary's cause.
To suppose that she had any sentimental feelings for
one whom she knew to be her deadly enemy is, in my
judgment, ridiculous. Elizabeth was not a generous
woman especially towards other women ; and in this
case generosity would have been folly, and culpable
folly. She did not hate Mary she was too cool and
self-reliant to hate an enemy but she disliked her.
She was jealous, with a small feminine jealousy, of her
beauty and fascinations. The consciousness of this
unworthy feeling made her all the more anxious not
to betray it. And so, at a time when she did not
expect to have Mary on her hands, she had been
tempted to use language implying a pity, sympathy,
and affection which assuredly she did not feel, and
which it would not have been creditable to her to
feel. Petty insincerities of this kind have usually to
be paid for sooner or later. She had now to exchange
72 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
the language of sympathy for the language of business
with what grace she could ; and she has not escaped
the charge, certainly undeserved, of deliberate treachery.
It was awkward, after such exaggerated professions
of sympathy, to be obliged to hold the fugitive at
arm's-length, and even to put restraint on her move-
ments. But no other course was possible. No
sovereign, at any time in history, has allowed a pre-
tender to the crown to move about freely in his
dominions and make a party among his subjects.
Wince as she might, and did, under the reproach
of treachery, Elizabeth was not going to allow her
unwise words to tie her to unwise action. Only one
arrangement appeared to her to be at once admissible
in principle and prudent in practice. Mary must be
restored to the Scottish throne ; but in such a way
that she should thenceforth be powerless for mischief.
She must be content with the title of Queen. The
real government must be in the hands of Moray.
Thus the principle of legitimacy and the sacredness
of royalty would be saved, and the English Catholics
would be content to bide their time.
Cecil, for his part, was also anxious to see Mary
back in Scotland; but not as Queen. Though re-
garded in Catholic circles as a desperate heretic, he
was really a politiquc, a worldly-minded man I mean
the epithet to be laudatory and he would probably
have admitted in the abstract the wisdom of Eliza-
beth's opinion that it was of more importance to
England to have a legitimate sovereign than a gospel
religion. But he was not prepared to submit frankly
to the application ot this principle. His personal
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 73
prospects were too deeply concerned. It was all very
well for Elizabeth to lay down a principle in which
she might be said to have a life-interest. She was
thirteen years his junior; but she might easily pre-
decease him ; and, with Mary on the throne, his
power would certainly go, and, not improbably, his
head with it. It was not in human nature, there-
fore, that he should cherish the principle of primo-
geniture as his mistress did ; and, as far as his dread
of her displeasure would allow him, he was always
casting about for some means of defeating Mary's
reversion. Her sudden plunge into crime was to him
a turn of good fortune beyond his dreams. If he
could have had his will she would have been promptly
handed over to the Eegent on the understanding that
she was to be consigned to perpetual imprisonment,
or, still better, to the scaffold.
In order to carry out her plan, Elizabeth called
on Mary and the Regent to submit their respective
cases to a Commission, consisting of the Duke of
Norfolk, the Earl of Sussex, and Sir Ralph Sadler.
Mary was extremely reluctant, as she well might be,
to face any investigation ; but she was told that,
until her character was formally cleared, she could
not be admitted to Elizabeth's presence; and she
was at the same time privately assured that her
restoration should, in any case, be managed without
any damage to her honour. Moray received an
equally positive assurance that if his sister was
proved guilty, she should not be restored. The two
statements were not absolutely irreconcilable, because
Elizabeth intended to prevent the worst charges from
74 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP,
being openly proved. Her sole object and we can
hardly blame her was to obtain security for herself
and her own kingdom. She did not wish the Queen
of Scots to be proved a murderess in open court;
but she did desire that the charge* should be made,
and also that the Commissioners should see the
originals of the casket letters. Any public disclosure
of the evidence might be prevented, and some sort
of ambiguous acquittal pronounced, on grounds which
all the world would see to be nugatory : such, for
instance, as the culprit's own solemn denial of the
charge ; which was, in fact, the only answer Mary in-
tended to make. What was known to the Commis-
sioners would come to be more or less known to all
persons of influence in England, and would surely dis-
credit Mary to such a degree that even her warmest
partisans would cease to conspire in her favour. Mary
herself (so Elizabeth hoped), when made aware
that this terrible weapon was in reserve, and could
at any moment be used against her, would be per-
manently humbled and crippled, and would be glad
to accept such terms as Elizabeth would impose.
The Commissioners opened their court at York
(October 1568). But they had not been sitting long
before Elizabeth discovered that Norfolk was scheming
to marry Mary, and that the project was approved
by many of the English nobility. Their purpose
was not, as yet, disloyal. They thought that, married
to the head of the English peerage, and residing in
England, Mary would have to give up her plots with
France, while her presence would strengthen the Con-
servative party, which desired to keep up the old
iv a-LlZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 75
alliance with Spain, and looked for the re-establish-
ment sooner or later of the old religion. This scheme,
though not disloyal, was extremely alarming to Eliza-
beth. Norfolk was nominally a Protestant. But she
had placed him on the Commission as a representative
of the Conservative party, believing that, while he
would lend himself to hushing up Mary's guilt, his
eyes would be opened to her real character. Yet here
he was, like the Hamiltons, Campbells, and Douglases,
ready to take her with her smirched reputation, simply
for the chance of her two crowns. It was not a case
of love, for he had never seen her. He seems to have
been staggered for a moment by the sight of the
casket letters, and to have doubted whether it was
for his honour or even his safety to marry such a
woman. But in the end, as we shall see, he swallowed
his scruples.
On discovering Norfolk's intrigue, Elizabeth hastily
revoked the Commission, and ordered another investi-
gation to be held by the most important peers and
statesmen of England. The casket letters and the
depositions were submitted to them. Mary's able and
zealous advocate, the Bishop of Ross, could say nothing
except that his mistress had sent him on the supposi-
tion that Moray was to be the defendant : let her
appear in person before the Queen, and she would give
reasons why Moray ought not to be allowed to advance
any charges against her. To make no better answer
than this was virtually to admit that the charges
against her were unanswerable.
It was thought that she was now sufficiently fright-
ened to be ready to accept Elizabeth's terms, and they
76 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
were unofficially communicated to her. Her return
to Scotland was no longer contemplated, for Moray
had absolutely declined to charge her openly with the
murder or produce the letters unless she were detained
in England. But in order to get rid of the revolution-
ary proceedings at Loch Leven she herself, as it were of
her own free will, and on the ground that she was
weary of government, was to confer the crown on her
son and the regency on Moray. James was to be
educated in England. She herself was to reside in
England as long as Elizabeth should find it convenient.
It was not mentioned in the communication, but it
was probably intended, that she should marry some
Englishman of no political importance, in order to
produce more children who would succeed James if,
as was likely enough, he should die in his infancy.
If she would accept these conditions the charges against
her should be "committed to perpetual silence;" if
not, the trial must go on, and the verdict could not be
doubtful (December 1568).
A woman less daring and less keen-sighted than
Mary would assuredly, at this point, have given up
the game, and thankfully accepted the conditions
offered. They would not have prevented her from
ascending th<i English throne if she had outlived
Elizabeth. But that was a delay which she had
always scouted as intolerable, and she was one to
whom life was worth nothing if it meant defeat, re-
tirement, even for a time, from the public scene,
and the abandonment of long-cherished ambitions.
Moreover her quick wit had divined that Elizabeth
was using a threat which she did not mean to put
iv ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART : 1559-1568 77
into execution. There would be no verdict not even
any publication to the world of the evidence. Guilty
therefore as she was, and aware that her guilt could
be proved, she coolly faced " the great extremities "
at which Elizabeth had hinted, and rejected the
conditions.
Perhaps even Mary's daring would have flinched
from this bold game but for a quarrel between Eliza-
beth and Philip, to be mentioned presently. Hitherto
Philip, much to his credit, had declined to interfere
in Mary's behalf. To him, as to every one else, Catholic
as well as Protestant, her guilt seemed evident. She
had been only a scandal and embarrassment to the
Catholic cause. But if there was to be war with
England, every enemy of Elizabeth was a weapon to
be used. Accordingly he now began, though reluc-
tantly, to think of helping the Queen of Scots, and
even of marrying her to his brother Don John of
Austria. With the prospect of such backing it was
not wonderful that she declined to own herself beaten.
Elizabeth's calculations, though reasonable, were
thus disappointed. The inquiry was dropped with-
out any decision. The Regent was sent home with a
small sum of money, and Mary remained in England
(January 1569).
CHAPTER V
ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572
FROM the beginning of the reign Cecil had never
ceased to impress upon his mistress that a French or
Spanish invasion on behalf of the Pope might at any
time be expected, and that she should hurry to meet
it by forming a league with the foreign Protestants
of both Confessions, and vigorously assisting them to
carry on a war of religion on the Continent. He was
assuredly too well informed to believe that France and
Spain would cease to counteract each other's designs
on England, or that Lutherans and Calvinists would
heartily combine for mutual defence. The enemies
he really feared were his Catholic countrymen, with
whom he would have to fight for his head if Eliza-
beth should die. He therefore desired to force on the
struggle in her lifetime, when they would be rebels,
and he would wield the power of the Crown.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, was against interference
on the Continent, because it would be the surest way
to bring upon England the calamity of invasion. She
saw as plainly as Cecil did that it would compel her
to throw herself into the arms of her own Protestants
78
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 79
and to become, like her two predecessors, the mere
chief of a party ; whereas she meant to be the Queen
of all Englishmen, and to tranquillise the natural fears
of each party by letting it see that it would not be
sacrificed to the violence of the other. Moreover the
unbridled ascendancy of the Protestants would mean
such alterations in the established worship as would
have driven from the parish churches thousands of
the most military class, peers, squires and their tenantry,
who were enduring Anglicanism with its episcopate,
its semi- Catholic prayer-book, and its claim to belong
to the Universal Apostolic Church, because they could
persuade themselves that its variations from the old
religion were unimportant and temporary. And this
again would increase the probability of foreign in-
vasion. For, though to Philip all forms of heresy
were equally damnable and equally marked out for
extermination sooner or later, yet he was in much less
hurry to begin with the politically harmless Lutherans
or Anglicans than with the dangerous levellers who
derived their inspiration from Geneva. Now for
Elizabeth to gain time was everything. She had
gained ten precious years already by her moderation.
She was to gain twenty more before the slow-moving
Spaniard decided to launch the great Armada.
But though Elizabeth shunned war with Spain she
nevertheless recognised that Philip was the enemy,
and that all ways of damaging him short of war were
for her advantage. English and Huguenot corsairs
swarmed in the Channel. Spanish ships were seized.
The crews were hanged or made to walk the plank ;
the prizes were carried into English ports, and there
80 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP,
sold without disguise or rebuke. These outrages
were represented as reprisals for cruelties inflicted on
English sailors who occasionally fell into the hands
of the Inquisition. Practically a ship with a valuable
cargo was treated as fair game whatever its nationality.
But while in the case of other countries it was only
individual traders who suffered, to Spain it meant
obstruction of her high road to her Belgic dominions,
then simmering with disaffection.
The English nobles of the old blood disliked these
proceedings. Even Cecil did not conceal from himself
that they fostered a spirit of lawlessness. What the
corsairs were doing he would have preferred to see
done by the royal navy. To that Elizabeth would
not consent. The activity of the corsairs gave her all
the advantage she could hope to have from war, with-
out any of its disadvantages. Instead of laying out
her treasure on a navy, she was deriving an income
from the piratical ventures of Hawkins and Drake;
while the ships and sailors of this volunteer navy
would be available for the defence of the couiitry
whenever the need should arise. Whatever may be
thought of the morality of her plan, there can be 110
question as to its efficiency and economy.
Since even these outrages, exasperating as they were,
had not goaded Philip to the point of declaring war,
a still more daring provocation now followed. Some
ships, conveying a large sum of money borrowed by
Philip in Genoa for the payment of Alva's army,
having put into English ports to avoid the corsairs,
Elizabeth, with the hearty approval of Cecil, took
possession of the money, and said she would herself
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 81
borrow it from the Genoese (December 1568). The
Minister hoped this would bring on a war. The Queen
audaciously but more correctly anticipated that Philip's
resentment would still stop short of that extremity.
He remonstrated : he threatened : he seized all Eng-
lish ships and sailors in his ports. Elizabeth, undis-
mayed, swept all the Spaniards and Flemings whom
she could find in London into her prisons, and seized
their goods, to a value far greater than that of the
English property in Philip's grasp.
In striking contrast with this unflinching attitude
towards Spain was the behaviour of Elizabeth when
threatened with war by France, unless she undertook
to close her harbours to the Huguenots, and to forbid
her own corsairs to prey on French commerce. The
summons was promptly obeyed. Full satisfaction was
made (April 1569). Yet France was at the moment
a far less formidable antagonist than Spain. The
French government did not possess the means of in-
vading England. On this side of the Channel the old
anti-French feeling was so persistent that all parties
were ready and willing for the fray. The defeat of
the Huguenots at Jarnac (April 1569) may have had
something to do with Elizabeth's compliance. But
what influenced her still more was her perception that
war with France would compel her to place herself
under the protection of Spain ; whereas she desired to
keep Spain at arm's-length, and to maintain a good
understanding with France, as did Eliot, Pym, and
Cromwell afterwards, regardless of the rooted pre-
judices of their countrymen. Elizabeth probably stood
alone in her judgment on this occasion.
82 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
The quarrel with Philip had more serious results at
home than abroad. It was indirectly the cause of the
only English rebellion that disturbed the long reign of
Elizabeth.
Most of the nobility and gentry, even when pro-
fessedly Protestants, regretted the alienation of England
from the Universal Church. If they had all pulled
together they must have had their way, for they were
the military and political class. But their discontent
varied widely in its intensity. There were nobles
like Sussex who were resolved to serve their Queen
loyally and zealously, but who, all the same, wished
her to cultivate a good understanding with Philip, to
marry the Archduke, to abstain from assisting the
Huguenots, to give no countenance to the rovers, to
recognise Mary as her heir-presumptive and marry her
to Norfolk. There were others like Norfolk, Montagu,
Arundel, and Southampton, who had treasonable re-
lations with the Spanish ambassador, and aimed at
overthrowing Cecil, marrying Mary to Norfolk, and
compelling the Queen to restore the Catholic worship,
or at least to make such changes in the Anglican model
as would facilitate a reunion with Rome when Mary
should succeed. A third party, headed by the Catholic
lords of the north, was plotting to depose Elizabeth in
favour of Mary, and to marry the latter to Don John
of Austria.
With these powerful nobles in opposition, who, be-
fore the Reformation, could have hurled any sovereign
from his throne, where was Elizabeth to look for
support ? The town populations were Prote&tant
too Protestant indeed for her taste. But the town
y ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 83
populations were a minority, and less military than the
landowners and their tenants. She had her Cecils,
Bacons, Walsinghams, Hunsdons, Knollyses, Sadlers,
Killegrews, Drurys, capable and devoted servants, but
new men without territorial wealth or influence, and
with no force except what they possessed as wield-
ing the power of the Crown. It would be difficult to
name more than half-a-dozen peers who zealously pro-
moted her policy. Most of them looked on it coldly,
and would support her only as long as she seemed to
be strongest.
Mary's rejection of Elizabeth's terms coincided with
the quarrel with Philip (December 1568). The dis-
affected nobles thought that the time was now come
for striking a blow. Conscious that the feudal devo-
tion of the gentry and yeomanry to their local chiefs
had in Tudor times been largely superseded by awe of
the central government, they were importuning Philip
to give them the signal for rebellion by sending a
division of Alva's army from the Netherlands. Philip,
cautious as usual, and afraid of driving England into
alliance with France, declined to send a soldier until
either the Norfolk party had overthrown Cecil, or the
northern lords had carried off Mary. Between these
two sets of conspirators there was much jealousy and
distrust. The Spanish ambassador thought the southern
scheme the most feasible. Not without difficulty he
persuaded the northern lords to wait till it should be
seen whether the Queen could be induced or compelled
to sanction the marriage of Mary with Norfolk. If
she refused, they were to make a dash on Wingfield, a
seat of Lord Shrewsbury's in Derbyshire where Mary
84 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
was staying, while Norfolk was to raise the eastern
counties.
All through the summer of 1569 these plots were
brewing. Three times Norfolk and his father-in-law
Arundel went to the Council with the intention of
arresting Cecil. Three times their hearts failed them.
The northern lords, who were not members of the
Council, came up to London to see Norfolk bell the
cat, but went back, more suspicious than ever, to make
their own preparations. Cecil himself seems to have
been hedging. In his private advice to the Queen
he was opposing the Norfolk marriage, pointing out
that free or in prison, married or single, in England
or in Scotland, Mary must always be dangerous, and
breathing for the first time the suggestion that she
might lawfully be put to death in England for com-
plicity in English plots. In the Council he concurred
in a vote that she should be married to an Englishman
in other words, to Norfolk.
If Elizabeth could have felt any confidence in
Norfolk's loyalty, it seems probable that much as she
disliked the marriage she would have yielded to the
almost unanimous pronouncement of the nobility in
its favour. But a sure instinct warned her of her
danger. " If she consented she would be in the Tower
before four months were over." After much delibera-
tion she commanded the Duke on his allegiance to re-
nounce his project. He gave his promise, but soon
retired to his own county, and sent word to the
northern earls that "he would stand and abide the
venture." But while he was shivering and hesitating,
Elizabeth, for once, was all promptitude and decision.
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 85
Mary was hurried to Tutbury Castle. Arundel and
Pembroke were summoned to Windsor, and kept under
surveillance. Norfolk himself came in quietly, and
was lodged in the Tower. Thus the southern con-
spiracy collapsed (September-October 1569).
The Catholic lords and gentlemen of the north
who had been awaiting Norfolk's signal, were staggered
by his tame surrender. Sussex, who was in command
at York, and who, being of the old blood himself, did
not care to see old houses crushed, advised Elizabeth
to wink at their half-begun treason, and be thankful
it had not come to fighting. She winked at the at-
tempted flight to Alva of Southampton and Montagu,
and even affected to trust the latter with the command
of the militia called out in Sussex. She could afford
to ignore the disaffection of a southern noble. A
Sussex squire or yeoman, even if he was not a Pro-
testant, would think twice before he cast in his lot
with rebellion. The northern counties were mainly
Catholic. They were much behind the south in
civilisation. The Tudor sovereigns were never seen
there. Great families were still looked up to. Eliza-
beth knew that though rebellion might be adjourned,
might possibly never come off, it was a constant menace,
which crippled her policy. She determined therefore
to have done with it, once for all, and summoned
Northumberland and Westmoreland to London.
Thus driven into a corner, the two earls burst into
rebellion. They entered Durham in arms, overthrew
the communion table in the cathedral, set up the old
altar, and had mass said (Nov. 14, 1569). Next day
they marched south, with the object of rescuing Mary
86 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
from Tutbury. But when they were within fifty
miles of that place, Shrewsbury and Huntingdon, in
obedience to hurried orders from London, conveyed her
to Coventry. Having thus missed their spring, the
rebel earls halted irresolutely for three days, and then
turned back. Their followers dropped away from them.
Clinton and Warwick were on their track, with the
musters of the Midlands ; and before the end of
December they were fain to fly across the Border.
Northumberland was arrested by Moray. Two years
later he was given up to Elizabeth, and executed.
Westmoreland, after being protected for a time by Ker
of Ferniehirst, escaped to the Netherlands, where he
died. England was not again disturbed by rebellion
till the great civil war.
The failure of the northern earls to kindle a
general rebellion was due to the cautious and tem-
porising policy for which Elizabeth has been so
severely blamed by heated partisans. The powerful
party which preferred a Spanish alliance, disliked
religious innovation, and looked forward to the succes-
sion of Mary, had not been driven to despair of
accomplishing those ends in a lawful way. Their
avowed policy had not been proscribed had not even
been repudiated. Some of their chief leaders were on
the Council as we should say, were members of the
Government; others were employed and trusted and
visited by the Queen. They objected to being hurried
into civil war by the northern lords, who were not of
the Council, who kept away from London, and were
rebels by inheritance and tradition. They would have
nothing to do with the ill-advised movement ; and, as
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 8 1 ?
in those days neutrality in the presence of open in-
surrection was no more permissible to a nobleman
than it would be now to an officer in the army, they
had no choice but to range themselves on the side
of the Government. If Elizabeth had openly branded
the Queen of Scots as a murderess, if she had pointed
to Huntingdon or the son of Catherine Grey as her
successor, if she had put herself at the head of a
Protestant league, she might possibly have come vic-
torious out of a civil war. But a civil war it would
have been, and of the worst kind : one party calling in
the Spaniard, and the other, in all probability, driven
to call in the Frenchman.
The assassination of Moray a few weeks later (Jan.
23, 1570) was a severe blow to Elizabeth, and an
irreparable disaster to his own country. An attempt
has been made to create an impression that the Eng-
lish Queen was somehow responsible for his death,
because she did not march an army into Scotland to sup-
port him. He no more wished to receive an English
army into Scotland than Elizabeth wished to send one.
Therein they were both of them wiser than the critics
of their own day, or this. What he did ask for was
money, and the recognition of James. The request
for money Elizabeth was willing to consider, though,
as a rule, she did not believe in paying for any
work she could get done gratis. The recognition of
James seems a very simple thing to the critics. But
it was as difficult for Elizabeth as the recognition
of the Prince of Bulgaria is now to Austria, and for
similar reasons. She was under no obligation what-
ever to Moray. His own interest compelled him to
88 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
play her game. But she well knew his value. On
hearing of his death she shut herself up in her
chamber, exclaiming, with tears, that she had lost the
best friend she had in the world.
As long as Moray lived, and was able to keep the
Marian lords in some sort of check, Elizabeth judged,
and rightly, that she had more to lose than to gain by
any open interference in Scotland. It was no business
of hers to put down anarchy there. Scotch anarchy
did not imperil England. What would imperil England
would be the appearance of French troops in Scotland ;
and she judged that nothing would be so likely to bring
them there as any pretension to establish an English
protectorate. Her Protestant councillors fretted at
her laisser faire policy. But then they, for personal
or at least for sectarian reasons, were eager for that
general European conflagration which she, with superior
discernment and larger patriotism, was trying to avert.
The death of Moray so weakened the King's party
that it became necessary to give them a little help.
Elizabeth gave it in such a way as she thought would
be least likely to excite the jealousy of France. She
told the new Eegent Lennox that, though she could
not send an army to support him, she would send one
to chastise the Hamiltons and the Borderers, who
were harbouring her rebel the Earl of Westmore-
land, and, along with him, making raids into England.
This was done sharply and thoroughly. The robber
holds on the Border, and Hamilton Castle itself, were
one after another taken and blown up by the English
Wardens of the Marches (April and May 1570).
Wheat Elizabeth desired more than anything else
V ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 89
was to settle Scotch affairs, in conjunction with France,
on the terms that neither power should interfere in
Scotland. To Cecil this was unsatisfactory, because
the restoration of Mary, on any terms whatever, would,
if she survived Elizabeth, ensure her succession to the
English throne, and the ruin of Cecil himself. He did
not want to conciliate Catholics at home or abroad.
He wanted to commit his mistress to an internecine
war with them. In an angry dispute with Arundel at
the Council board about this time, he blurted out his
doctrine, that the Queen had no friends but the Pro-
testants, and that if she restored Mary she would lose
them all. No language could have been more dis-
pleasing to Elizabeth, especially in the presence of
crypto-Catholic lords, and she snubbed him unmerci-
fully. " Mr Secretary, I mean to have done with this
business ; I shall listen to the proposals of the French
King. I am not going to be tied any longer to you
and your brethren in Christ."
The peace of St. Germain between the French court
and the Huguenots (August 8, 1570), and the disgrace
of the Guises, were followed by negotiations for a tri-
partite treaty between England, France, and Scotland
on the basis of the restoration of Mary. Elizabeth, of
course, insisted on the guarantees she had often sketched
out. She was willing nay, anxious to leave Scotland
alone, if the French would do the same. The French,
on the other hand, felt that the equality of such an
arrangement was more seeming than real, because
there were always English troops lying at Berwick,
within sixty miles of Edinburgh. They haggled over
the guarantees, and in the meantime, notwithstanding
90 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
the real desire of Catherine and Charles IX. to con-
clude an alliance with Elizabeth against Philip, they
continued to send money and encouragement to the
Marian lords in Scotland. For if, for any reason, the
English alliance should not come off, they meant to
take up Mary's cause in earnest, and detach her from
her Guise relations by marrying her to the Duke of
Anjou, afterwards Henry in.
All this was known to Elizabeth, and in her ex-
treme anxiety for the tripartite treaty, she thought
the moment was come to dangle the bait which she
always reserved for occasions of special importance.
She informed the French ambassador that she was
ready to marry Anjou herself. It is not to be supposed
that she had the least intention of doing so. She
had settled with herself from the first how she would
get out of her proposal when it had served its turn.
A minor motive for this move was the hope that
it would reconcile her Protestant councillors to the
restoration of Mary. She did not succeed with all
of them. Some continued to mutter that Anjou was
a Papist, that tripartite treaties were a delusion,
and that the only safe course was to grasp the Scotch
nettle and uphold James with the whole force of
England. But upon Cecil the effect was almost
comical. He jumped at the plan. Anything that
was likely to make Elizabeth a mother would be
salvation to him. Whether the Queen at the mature
age of thirty-seven was likely to be happy with a
husband of twenty was a question that did not give
him a moment's concern. She was not too old to
have two or three children, and, that result once
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 91
achieved, Mary might go to Scotland or anywhere else
for what he cared, and do her worst. The sanguine
man already saw visions of a converted Valois
heading an Anglo-French crusade against Philip, and
establishing the reformed faith throughout Europe.
Walsingham his right-hand man, then ambassador at
Paris, was equally bitten. This was in the year before
the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
The overture of Elizabeth was very welcome to
the French court. Negotiations for the match were
soon opened, and continued during the first six months
of 1571. At the same time, both the Scotch factions
were summoned to accept the tripartite arrangement.
Mary was at first eager for it, and instructed her
agent, the Bishop of Koss, to swallow every condition
that might be imposed. She looked on it as the
only means of obtaining her release. But there is
ample proof that she intended to throw its stipulations
to the winds and fight for her own cause when once
she should get back to Scotland. In playing this per-
fidious game, she had confidently counted on the help
of France. The Regent's party, however, declined
the treaty. They flreaded Mary's return, and they
had no wish to shake hands with the Marian lords
or admit them to a share in the Government. The
tripartite scheme thus fell through. Mary herself
ceased to care for it as soon as she heard of the pro-
jected match between Elizabeth and Anjou. She saw
that if France was going to co-operate heartily with
England, her sovereignty in Scotland would be merely
nominal. She might almost as well remain with Lord
Shrewsbury.
92 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
To remain quietly in England and be content with
her position as heir-presumptive to the English crown
was indeed the best and safest course open to her.
She had only to acquiesce in it and give up plotting,
and she might have lived here in considerable mag-
nificence, and with as much freedom as she could
desire. If she wished for a husband, she might have
married any Englishman of whose loyalty Elizabeth
could feel assured. It was of the greatest import-
ance to both countries that she should bear more
children. For it must be remembered that if James
had died in his childhood, his next heir was a Hamil-
ton, who had no title to the English throne.
If the proposed Anjou match had not produced the
full results which Elizabeth hoped, it had at least
defeated the plans and disorganised the party of her
rival. It had served its turn ; and all that now
remained was to get out of it as decently as possible.
The old pretext for breaking off the Austrian match
was reproduced. Anjou could not be allowed to have
a private mass ; and when, in its eagerness, the French
court seemed disposed to give way on this point,
Elizabeth began to talk about a restitution of Calais.
Ruefully did poor Cecil watch the vanishing of his
dream. .It was to no purpose that he tried to
frighten Elizabeth by representing that a jilted prince
would be converted into an angry enemy. She knew
better. Anjou comprehended that she did not mean
to have him, and, to avoid the indignity of a refusal,
himself broke off negotiations. But, as Elizabeth had
calculated, the new alliance did not suffer. The French
King went out of his way to say that " for her upright
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 93
dealing he would honour the Queen of England during
his life," and Catherine, most unsentimental of women,
had another suitor to offer her youngest son Alen9on,
then just turned seventeen !
While the negotiations for the Anjou match were
going on, what is known as the Ridolfi Plot was
hatching against Elizabeth. Ridolfi, an Italian banker
in London, and secretly an agent of the Pope, was in
close relations with Norfolk and the other peers who
for two years had been dabbling in treason. They
were still pressing Philip to invade England ; but he
and Alva were less than ever disposed to undertake
the venture since the pitiful collapse of the northern
insurrection. In order to impress Philip with the
importance of the conspiracy, Ridolfi went to Madrid,
and showed Philip a letter purporting to be written
by Norfolk, to which was attached a list of noble-
men stated to be favourable to the cause. It con-
tained the names of forty out of the sixty-seven peers
then existing, while, of the rest, some were marked
as neutral, and fifteen at most as true to Elizabeth.
The classification was on the face of it absurdly un-
trustworthy. But correct or incorrect, it did not
weigh with Philip. He wanted deeds, not lists of
names, and Ridolfi was informed that, unless Eliza-
beth were first assassinated or imprisoned, not a
Spanish soldier could be sent to England.
Whatever secret disaffection might prevail among
the peers, the temper displayed by the new House
of Commons, elected in the spring of 1571, was not
of a kind to encourage Elizabeth's enemies at home
or abroad. So far as can be judged from its
94 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
proceedings and debates, it was not only entirely
Protestant, but largely Puritan. 1 A bill was passed by
which any person refusing, on demand, to acknowledge
Elizabeth's right to the crown was made incapable
of succeeding her; a provision which, though it did
not name Mary, could apply to no one else. It was
made high treason to deny that the inheritance of
the crown could be determined by the Queen and
Parliament. To affirm in writing that any particular
person was entitled to succeed the Queen, except the
Queen's issue, or some one established by Parliament,
was made punishable with imprisonment for life, and
forfeiture of all property for the second offence.
The plot which Bidolfi was so busily pushing in
1571 was, in fact, a continuation of the twin aristo-
cratic conspiracies, one of which had exploded in the
northern insurrection. By forcing that insurrection
to break out before the southern conspirators had
made up their minds what to do, the Government
had effectually destroyed what chances of success the
disaffected nobles had ever had. Alva was right in
his judgment that, if the Percys, Nevilles, and Dacres
could do so little, the Howard group, whose estates,
vast as they were, lay, for the most part, in more
orderly and civilised parts of the country, could do
still less. There was, indeed, some talk among them
of seizing the Queen at the opening of the Parlia-
ment of 1571, just as there had been a talk of
arresting Cecil two years before. But the truth was
that insurrection was a played-out game in England ;
i The oath of supremacy imposed on members of the House of
Commons in 1562 practically excluded conscientious Catholics.
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 95
and if Norfolk had been a ten-times abler and bolder
man than he was, it would have made no difference.
The true history of the time is not to be read in the
croakings and wailings privately exchanged between
Cecil, Walsingham, and the rest of the Protestant
junto, angry and alarmed because Elizabeth would not
let them play her cards for her. It is a strange
perversity which persists in adopting their view that
she was on the brink of ruin, when the patent fact is
that Protestantism was making rapid strides, that the
Queen's personal popularity was increasing every day,
and that Spain, France, and Scotland, the only coun-
tries with which she was concerned, were all humble
suitors for her alliance on almost any terms that it
might please her to exact. The correspondence of
Philip with Alva is there to prove, that while writh-
ing under the repeated aggressions of England, he was
obliged to put up with them because a war would
imperil his hold on the Netherlands. To all the in-
vitations of the Norfolks and Northumberlands, the
able and well-informed Alva turned a deaf ear, be-
cause he believed Elizabeth too strong to be over-
thrown. A French alliance she could always have as
long as the Guises were excluded from power. If
they regained their influence the Huguenots would
keep them fully occupied. Scotland, unless foreign
troops made their appearance there, could be no source
of danger to England.
Elizabeth's policy was thus, in its broad lines, as
simple as it was successful. At home it was her wisdom
to wink as long as possible at the disaffection of the
few, to win the affection of the many by economical
96 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
government, to reserve the persecuting laws for special
cases, while preventing any general and sweeping appli-
cation of them, and, lastly, to drive no party to despera-
tion by a too pronounced encouragement of its opponents.
Spain, as being the centre of reaction and the hope of
her disloyal nobles, she meant to harass and weaken as
far as she could do so without bringing on an open
war. With Charles IX. and his mother she desired
a defensive alliance, and an understanding that neither
country should send troops into Scotland or permit
Spain to do so. In its general conception, I repeat,
this policy was simple and coherent. How it succeeded
we know. There was nothing sentimental about it,
though, where individuals were concerned, Elizabeth's
judgment was sometimes warped by sentiment. Upon
the whole, she kept herself at the English point of
view. Whereas Cecil was compelled by personal
considerations to place himself too much at the point
of view of his " brethren in Christ," both at home
and abroad.
However, a plot there was, and it was necessary
that it should be unravelled and punished. Almost
from its inception, Cecil (created Lord Burghley
February 1571), had been more or less on the scent
of it. Hints had come from abroad : spies had
been employed : suspected persons had been closely
watched : inferior agents had been imprisoned,
questioned, racked: and enough had been discovered
to make it certain that Englishmen of the highest
rank were plotting treason. Who they were might
be suspected, but was not ascertained until a lucky
arrest put the Minister in possession of evidence
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 97
incriminating Norfolk, Arundel, Southampton, Lum-
ley, Cobham, the Spanish ambassador, the Bishop of
Ross, and Mary herself (September 1571). Norfolk
was sent to the Tower, and the other peers placed
under arrest. The ambassador was dismissed. The
Bishop made ample confessions. Mary, who had
hitherto lived as the guest of Lord Shrewsbury, en-
joying field-sports, receiving her friends and corre-
sponding with whom she would, was confined to a
single room, and carefully cut off, for a time, from all
communication with the outer world. Both in England
and abroad it was universally expected that she would
be brought to trial and executed. James was at
length officially styled " King " and his mother " late
Queen." Her partisans in Edinburgh Castle were
informed that she would never be restored, and that, if
they did not surrender the Castle to the Regent Mar,
an English force would be sent to take it. The casket
letters had hitherto been withheld from publication under
pressure from Elizabeth ; they were now at last given
to the world in the famous " Detection " of Buchanan.
Under any other Tudor, or under the Stuarts, all
the peers arrested would undoubtedly have lost their
heads. Norfolk alone was brought to trial (January
1572). There was much in the proceedings which,
according to modern notions, was unfair to the accused.
But the peers who tried him felt sure that he was
guilty, and they were right. Subsequent investigations
have established beyond a doubt that he had conspired
to bring a foreign army into the country the worst
form that treason can take. He had done this with
contemptible hypocrisy, for a purely selfish object, and
98 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
after the most lenient and generous construction had
been placed on his first steps in crime. And yet
historians have been found to make light of the
offence, and to pity the malefactor as the victim of a
romantic attachment to a woman whom he had never
seen, and whom he believed to be an adulteress and a
murderess.
During the spring of 1572 Elizabeth hesitated to
let justice take its course. She had reigned fourteen
years without taking the life of a single noble. The
scaffold on Tower Hill from such long disuse was
falling to pieces, and Norfolk's sentence had made it
necessary to erect a new one. Elizabeth was loath to
break the spell.
Not knowing with any certainty how many of her
nobles might have given more or less approval to the
Eidolfi plot, but confident that she could cow them by
letting the voice of the untitled aristocracy and middle
class be heard, she called a new Parliament (l^Eay
1572). The response went beyond her expectation.
Of Mary's well-wishers, once so numerous, all except a
few fanatics had now given her up. Two alternative
courses of action with respect to her were submitted
for consideration, with the intimation that the Queen
would accept whichever of them Parliament should
approve. The first was attainder. The second was
that she should be disabled from succession to the
crown ; that if she attempted treason again she should
" suffer pains of death without further trouble of
Parliament ; " and that it should be treason if she
assented to any enterprise to deliver her out of prison.
Both houses at once voted to proceed with the
v ARISTOCRATIC PLOTS : 1568-1572 99
attainder. Elizabeth, we may be sure, was not sorry
for this unmistakable exhibition of feeling. It would
open the eyes of her enemies both at home and abroad.
But she had no intention of proceeding to such ex-
tremities this time. Mary should have fair warning.
Accordingly Parliament was desired to " defer " the
bill of attainder, and to proceed with the second
measure. But the Commons were in grim earnest.
They immediately resolved that the second bill would
be useless and even mischievous, as it would imply
that at present Mary had a right of succession, whereas
she was already disabled by law ; and that they there-
fore preferred to proceed with the attainder. With this
resolution the Lords concurred.
Here they were on dangerous ground. To rake up
the law empowering Henry vm. to determine the
succession was to disable all the Stuarts, James in-
cluded, and so to throw away the opportunity of
uniting the crowns. Elizabeth had always, for excel-
lent reasons, refused to allow this question to be raised.
Accordingly she again directed the House to defer the
attainder ; she would not have the Scottish Queen
" either enabled or disabled to or from any manner of
title to the crown," nor "any other title to the same
whatsoever touched at all ;" to make sure of which
she would have the second bill drawn by her own law
officers. To the repeated demands of the Commons
for the execution of Norfolk, she at length gave way,
and a few days later he was beheaded (June 2, 1572).
The second bill, as drawn by the law officers, passed
both Houses. Its exact terms are not known, for it
never received the royal assent.
100 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP, v
Burghley who was of opinion (as some one after-
wards said about Strafford) that "stone dead hath
no fellow," bemoaned himself privately to Walsingham
on the disappointment of their hopes ; and modern
historians, with whom his authority is final, are loud
in their condemnation of Elizabeth's vacillation and
blindness. Vacillation there was really none. She
had determined from the first not to allow Mary to be
punished. She had gained all she wanted when the
temper of Parliament had been ascertained and dis-
played to the world. There have always been plenty
of people to accuse her of treachery and cruelty be-
cause she put Mary to death fifteen years later, for
complicity in an assassination plot. How would her
name have gone down to posterity if the Scottish
Queen had been executed in 1572 merely for inviting
a foreign army to rescue her from captivity ?
CHAPTER VI
FOREIGN AFFAIRS l 1572-1583
THE year 1572 witnessed two events of capital
importance in European history : the rising in the
Netherlands, which resulted in the establishment of
the Dutch Republic (April); and the massacre of
St. Bartholomew, which marked the decisive rejection
of Protestantism by France (August).
In the beginning of that year a few weeks before
the proceedings in Parliament just narrated Elizabeth
had at last concluded the defensive alliance with
France for which she had been so long negotiating
(April 19). It cannot be too often repeated that this
was the corner-stone of her foreign policy. For the
sake of its superior importance she had abstained from
the interference in Scotland which her Ministers were
always urging. The more she interfered there the
more she would have to interfere, till it would end
in her having a rebellious province on her hands in
addition to the hostility of both France and Spain;
whereas an alliance with France would give her
security on all sides, Scotland included. In the treaty
it was agreed that if either country were invaded
101
102 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
"under any pretence or cause, none excepted," the
other should send 6000 troops to its assistance. This
was accompanied with an explanation, in the King's
handwriting, that " any cause " included religion.
The article relating to Scotland is not less significant.
The two sovereigns " shall make no innovations in
Scotland, but defend it against foreigners, not suffer-
ing strangers to enter, or foment the factions in Scot-
land ; but it shall be lawful for the Queen of England
to chastise by arms the Scots who shall countenance
the English rebels now in Scotland." Mary was not
mentioned. France therefore tacitly renounced her
cause. Immediately after the conclusion of the treaty
Charles IX. formally proposed a marriage between
Elizabeth and his youngest brother, Alen9on. This
proposal she managed to encourage and elude for
eleven years.
It was just at this moment that the seizure of Brill
by some Dutch rovers, who had taken refuge on the
sea from the cruelty of Alva, caused most of the towns
of Holland and Zealand to blaze into rebellion (April 1).
Thus began the great war of liberation, which was to last
thirty-seven years. The Protestant party in England
hailed the revolt with enthusiasm. Large subscriptions
were made to assist it, and volunteers poured across
to take part in the struggle. Charles IX. and his
mother, full of schemes of conquest in the Netherlands,
urged Elizabeth to join them in a war against Philip.
But, with a sagacity and self-restraint which do her in-
finite honour, she refused to be drawn beyond the lines
laid down in the recent defensive alliance. Security,
economy, fructification of the tax-payers' money in the
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 103
tax-payers' pocket such were the guiding principles
of her policy. She was not to be dragged into
dangerous enterprises either ambitious or Quixotic.
Schemes for the partition of the Netherlands were laid
before her. Zealand, it was said, would indemnify
her for Calais. What Englishman with any common
sense does not now see that she was right to reject the
bribe ?
To Elizabeth no rebellion against a legitimate
sovereign could be welcome in itself. Since Philip
was so possessed by religious bigotry as to be danger-
ous to all Protestant States, she was not sorry that he
should wear out his crusading ardour in the Nether-
lands ; and she was ready to give just as much assistance
to the Dutch, in an underhand way, as would keep him
fully occupied without bringing a declaration of war
upon herself. But she would have vastly preferred
that he should repress Catholic and Protestant fanatics
alike, and get along quietly with the mass of his subjects
as his father had done before him. Charles IX. was
eager to strike in if she would join him. Those who
blame her so severely for her refusal seem to forget
that a French conquest of the Netherlands would
have been far more dangerous to this country than
their possession by Spain. To keep them out of French
hands has indeed been the traditional policy of Eng-
land during the whole of modern history.
But, it is said, such a war would have clinched
the alliance recently patched up between the French
court and the Huguenots ; there would have been no
Bartholomew Massacre ; " on Elizabeth depended at
that moment whether the French Government would
104 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP
take its place once for all on the side of the Kefor-
mation."
Whether it would have been for the advantage of
European progress in the long-run that France should
settle down into Calvinism, I will forbear to inquire.
Fortunately for the immediate interests of England,
Elizabeth understood the situation in France better
than some of her critics do, even with the results
before their eyes. The Huguenots were but a small
fraction of the nation. Whatever importance they
possessed they derived from their rank, their turbulence,
and the ambition of their leaders. In a few towns of
the south and south-west they formed a majority of
the population. But everywhere else they were mostly
noblemen, full of the arrogance and reckless valour of
their class, anything but puritans in their morals, and
ready to destroy the unity of the kingdom for political
no less than for religious objects. They had been
losing ground for several years. The mass of the
people abhorred their doctrines, and protested against
any concession to their pretensions. Charles and his
mother were absolutely careless about religion. Their
feud with the Guises and their designs on the Nether-
lands had led them to invite the Huguenot chiefs to
court, and so to give them a momentary influence
in shaping the policy of France. It was with nothing
more solid to lean on than this ricketty and short-lived
combination that Burghley and Walsingham were eager
to launch England into a war with the most powerful
monarchy in Europe.
The massacre of St. Bartholomew (August 24) was
a rude awakening from these dreams. That thunder-
VT FOUEIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 105
clap did not show that, in signing the treaty with Eng-
land and in proposing an attack on Philip, the French
Government had been playing a treacherous game all
along, in order to lure the Huguenots to the shambles.
But it did show that when the Catholic sentiment
in France was thoroughly roused, the dynasty itself
must bend before it or be swept away. England might
help the Huguenots to keep up a desultory and harass-
ing civil war; she could no more enable them to
control the policy of the French nation and wield its
force, than she could at the present day restore the
Bourbons or Bonapartes.
The first idea of Elizabeth and her ministers, on
receiving the news of the massacre, naturally was that
the French Government had been playing them false
from the first, that the Catholic League for the extir-
pation of heresy in Europe, which had been so much
talked of since the Bayonne interview in 1565, was
after all a reality, and that England might expect an
attack from the combined forces of Spain and France.
Thanks to the prudent policy of Elizabeth, England
was in a far better position to meet all dangers than
she had been in 1565. The fleet was brought round
to the Downs. The coast was guarded by militia.
An expedition was organised to co-operate with the
Dutch insurgents. Money was sent to tbe Prince of
Orange. Huguenot refugees were allowed to fit out a
flotilla to assist their co-religionists in Rochelle. The
Scotch Regent Mar was informed, with great secrecy,
that if he would demand the extradition of Mary, and
undertake to punish her capitally for her husband's
murder, she should be given up to him.
106 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
A few weeks sufficed to show that there was no
reason for panic. Confidence, indeed, between the
French and English Governments had been severely
shaken. Each stood suspiciously on its guard. But
the alliance was too well grounded in the interests of
both parties to be lightly cast aside. The French
ambassador was instructed to excuse and deplore the
massacre as best he could, and to press on the Alencon
marriage. Elizabeth, dressed in deep mourning, gave
him a stiff reception, but let him see her desire to
maintain the alliance. The massacre did not restore
the ascendancy of the Guises. To the Huguenots, as
religious reformers, it gave a blow from which they
did not recover. But as a political faction they were
not crushed. Nay, their very weakness became their
salvation, since it compelled them to fall into the
second rank behind the Politiques, the true party of
progress, who were before long to find a victorious
leader in Henry of Navarre.
Philip, for his part, was equally far from any thought
of a crusade against England. Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
commanding several companies of English volunteers,
with the hardly concealed sanction of his government,
was fighting against the Spaniards in Walcheren and
hanging all his prisoners. Sir John Hawkins, with
twenty ship,s, had sailed to intercept the Mexican
treasure fleet. Yet Alva, though gnashing his teeth,
was obliged to advise his master to swallow it all,
and to be thankful if he could get Elizabeth to re-
open commercial intercourse, which had been pro-
hibited on both sides since the quarrel about the
Genoese treasure. A treaty for this purpose was in
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 107
fact concluded early in 1573. Thus the chief result
of the Bartholomew Massacre, as far as Elizabeth was
concerned, was to show how strong her position was,
and that she had no need either to truckle to Catholics
or let her hand be forced by Protestants. A balance
of power on the Continent was what suited her, as it
has generally suited this country. Let her critics say
what they will, it was no business of hers to organise
a Protestant league, and so drive the Catholic sovereigns
to sink their mutual jealousies and combine against the
common enemy.
The Scotch Regent was quite ready to undertake
the punishment of Mary, but only on condition that
Elizabeth would send the Earl of Bedford or the Earl
of Huntingdon with an army to be present at the
execution and to take Edinburgh Castle. It need
hardly be said that there was also a demand for
money. Mar died during the negotiations, but they
were continued by his successor Morton. Elizabeth
was determined to give no open consent to Mary's
execution. She meant, no doubt, as soon as it should
be over, to protest, as she did fifteen years afterwards,
that there had been an unfortunate mistake, and to
lay the blame of it on the Scotch Government and
her own agents. This part of the negotiation there-
fore came to nothing. But money was sent to Morton,
which enabled him to establish a blockade of Edin-
burgh Castle, and by the mediation of Elizabeth's
ambassador, the Hamiltons, Gordons, and all the other
Marians except those in the Castle, accepted the very
favourable terms offered them, and recognised James.
All that remained was to reduce the Castle. Its
108 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
defenders numbered less than two hundred men. The
city and the surrounding country were as far as
preaching and praying went vehemently anti- Marian.
The Regent had now no other military task on his
hands. Elizabeth might well complain when she was
told that unless she sent an army and paid the Scotch
Protestants to co-operate with it, the Castle could not
be taken. For some time she resisted this thoroughly
Scotch demand. But at last she yielded to Morton's
importunity. Sir William Drury marched in from
Berwick, did the job, and marched back again (May
1573). Among the captives were the brilliant Mait-
land of Lethington, once the most active of Anglo-
philes, and Kirkaldy of Grange, who had begun the
Scottish Eeformation by the murder of Cardinal
Beaton, and had taken Mary prisoner at Carberry Hill.
A politician who did not turn his coat at least once
in his life was a rare bird in Scotland. Maitland
died a few days after his capture, probably by his
own hand. Kirkaldy was hanged by his old friend
Morton.
By taking Edinburgh Castle Elizabeth did not earn
any gratitude from the party who had called her in.
What they wanted, and always would want, was
money. Morton himself, treading in the steps of his
old leader Moray, remained an unswerving Anglo-
phile.. But his coadjutors told the English ambassador
plainly that, if they could not get money from England,
they could and would earn it from France. Eliza-
beth's councillors were always teasing her to comply
with these impudent demands. If there had been a
grown-up King on the throne, a man with a will
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 109
of his own, and whose right to govern could not be
contested, it might have been worth while to secure
his good-will by a pension ; and this was what Eliza-
beth did when James became real ruler of the country.
But she did not believe in paying a clique of greedy
lords to call themselves the English party. An
English party there was sure to be, if only because
there was a French party. Their services would be
neither greater nor smaller whether they were paid
or unpaid. The French poured money into Scotland,
and were worse served than Elizabeth, who kept her
money in her treasury. It was no fault of Eliza-
beth if the conditions of political life in Scotland
during the King's minority were such that a firmly
established government was in the nature of things
impossible.
As Mary was kept in strict seclusion during the
panic that followed on the Bartholomew Massacre,
she did not know how narrow was her escape from
a shameful death on a Scottish scaffold. When the
panic subsided she was allowed to resume her former
manner of life as the honoured guest of Lord Shrews-
bury, with full opportunities for communication with
all her friends at home and abroad. Any alarm she
had felt speedily disappeared. If Elizabeth had for
a moment contemplated striking at her life or title
by parliamentary procedure, that intention was evi-
dently abandoned when the Parliament of 1572 was
prorogued without any such measure becoming law.
The public assumed, and rightly, that Elizabeth still
regarded the Scottish Queen as her successor. Peter
Wentworth in the next session (1576) asserted, and
110 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
probably with truth, that many who had been loud
in their demands for severity repented of their for-
wardness when they found that Mary might yet be
their Queen, and tried to make their peace with her.
Wentworth's outburst (for which he was sent to the
Tower) was the only demonstration against Mary in
that session. She told the Archbishop of Glasgow
that her prospects had never been better, and when
opportunities for secret escape were offered her she
declined to use them, thinking that it was for her
interest to remain in England.
The desire of the English Queen to reinstate her
rival arose principally from an uneasy consciousness
that, by detaining her in custody, she was fatally im-
pairing that religious respect for sovereigns which was
the main, if not the only, basis of their power. The
scaffold of Fotheringay was, in truth, the prelude to
the scaffold of Whitehall. But as year succeeded
year, and Elizabeth became habituated to the situation
which had at first given her such qualms, she could
not shut her eyes to the fact that, troublesome and
even dangerous as Mary's presence in England was,
the trouble and the danger had been very much
greater when she was seated on the Scottish throne.
The seething caldron of Scotch politics had not, in-
deed, become a negligible quantity. It required
watching. But experience had shown that, while the
King was a child, the Scots were neither valuable
as friends nor formidable as foes. This was a truth
quite as well understood at Paris and Madrid as at
London, though the French, no .less keen in those
days than they are now to maintain that shadowy
vr FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 111
thing called " legitimate French influence " in countries
with which they had any historical connection, con-
tinued to intrigue and waste their money among the
hungry Scotch nobles. It was a fixed principle with
Elizabeth, as with all English statesmen, not to tolerate
the presence of foreign troops in Scotland. But she
believed and her belief was justified by events
that a French expedition was not the easy matter
it had been when Mary of Guise was Regent of Scot-
land and Mary Tudor Queen of England. And, more
important still, in spite of much treachery and dis-
trust, the French and English Governments were
bound together by a treaty which was equally neces-
sary to each of them. Scotland, therefore, was no
longer such a cause of anxiety to Elizabeth as it had
been during the first ten years of her reign. Her
ministers had neither her coolness nor her insight.
Yet modern historians, proud of having unearthed
their croaking criticisms, ask us to judge Elizabeth's
policy by prognostications which turned out to be false
rather than by the known results which so brilliantly
justified it.
How to deal with the Netherlands was a much more
complicated and difficult problem. Here again Eliza-
beth's ministers were for carrying matters with a high
hand. In their view, England was in constant danger
of a Spanish invasion, which could only be averted
by openly and vigorously supporting the revolted pro-
vinces. They would have had Elizabeth place herself
at the head of a Protestant league, and dare the worst
that Philip could do. She, on the other hand, believed
that every year war could be delayed was so much
112 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
gained for England. There were many ways in which
she could aid the Netherlands without openly challeng-
ing Philip. A curious theory of international relations
prevailed in those days an English Prime Minister,
by the way, found it convenient not long ago to revive
it according to which, to carry on warlike opera-
tions against another country was a very different
thing from going to war with that country. Of this
theory Elizabeth largely availed herself. English
generals were not only allowed, but encouraged, to
raise regiments of volunteers to serve in the Low
Countries. When there, they reported to the English
Government, and received instructions from it with
hardly a pretence of concealment. Money was openly
furnished to the Prince of Orange. English fleets
also nominally of volunteers were encouraged to prey
on Spanish commerce, Elizabeth herself subscribing to
their outfit and sharing in the booty.
We are not to suppose, because the revolt of the
Netherlands crippled Philip for any attack on Eng-
land, that Elizabeth welcomed it, or that she con-
templated the prolongation of the struggle with cold-
blooded satisfaction. Its immediate advantage to this
country was obvious. But Elizabeth had a sincere
abhorrence of war and disorder. She was equally
provoked with Philip for persecuting the Dutch Pro-
testants into rebellion, and with the Dutch for insisting
on religious concessions which Philip could not be
expected to grant, and which she herself was not
granting to Catholics in England. At any time during
the struggle, if Philip would have guaranteed liberty
of conscience (as distinguished from liberty of public
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 113
worship), the restoration of the old charters, and the
removal of the Spanish troops, Elizabeth would not
only have withheld all help from the Dutch, but
would have put pressure on them to submit to Philip.
The presence of Spanish veterans opposite the mouth
of the Thames was a standing menace to England.
" As they are there," argued Burghley, " we must help
the Dutch to keep them employed." "If the Dutch
were not such impracticable fanatics," rejoined Eliza-
beth, " the Spanish veterans need not be there at all."
The "Pacification of Ghent" (November 1576), by
which the Belgian Netherlands, for a short time, made
common cause with Holland and Zealand, relieved
Elizabeth, for a time, from the necessity of taking any
decisive step. Philip was still recognised as sovereign,
but he was required to be content with such powers
as the old constitution gave him. It seemed likely
that Catholic bigots would have to give up persecut-
ing, and Protestant bigots to acquiesce in the official
establishment of the old religion. This was precisely
the settlement Elizabeth had always desired. It would
get rid of the Spanish troops. It would keep out the
French. It would relieve her from the necessity of
interfering. If it put some restriction on the open
profession of Calvinism she would not be sorry.
If this arrangement could have been carried out,
would it in the long-run have been for the benefit
of Europe 1 Those who hold that the conflict be-
tween Protestantism and Catholicism was simply a
conflict between truth and falsehood will, of course,
have no difficulty in giving their answer. Others
may hold that freedom of conscience was all that was
H
114 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
needed at the time, and they may picture the many
advantages which Europe would have reaped during
the last three centuries from the existence of a united
Netherlands, independent, as it must soon have be-
come, of Spain, and able to make its independence
respected by its neighbours.
Short-lived as the coalition was destined to be, it
secured for the Dutch a breathing-time when they
were most sorely pressed, and enabled Elizabeth to
avoid quarrelling with Spain. The first step of the
newly allied States was to apply to her for assistance
and a loan of money. The loan they obtained
40,000 a very large sum in those days. But she
earnestly advised them that if the new Governor,
Don John of Austria, would accept the Pacification,
they should use the money to pay the arrears of the
Spanish troops ; otherwise they would refuse to leave
the country for Don John or any one else. This was
done. Don John had treachery in his heart. But the
departure of the Spaniards was a solid gain ; and if
the Protestants and Catholics of the Netherlands had
been able to tolerate each other, they would have
achieved the practical independence of their country,
and achieved it by their own unaided efforts.
But Don John, the crusader, the victor of Lepanto,
the half-brother of Philip, was a man of soaring
ambition. His dream was to invade England, marry
the Queen of Scots, and seat himself with her on the
English throne. It was in vain that Philip, who
never wavered in his desire to conciliate Elizabeth,
and was jealous of his showy brother, had strictly
enjoined him to leave England alone. He persisted w
VI FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 115
his design, and sent his confidant Escovedo to persuade
Philip that to conquer the Netherlands it was necessary
to begin by conquering England.
For a pair of determined enemies, Elizabeth and
Philip were just now upon most amicable, not to say
affectionate, terms. She knew well that he had in-
cited assassins to take her life, and that nothing would
at any time give him greater pleasure than to hear
that one of them had succeeded. But she bore him
no malice for that. She took it all in the way of busi-
ness, and intended, for her part, to go on robbing and
damaging him in every way she could short of going to
war. Philip bore it all meekly. Alva himself insisted
that he could not afford to quarrel with her. Diplo-
matic relations by means of resident ambassadors,
which had been broken off by the expulsion of De
Espes in 1571, were resumed; and English heretics in
the prisons of the Inquisition were released in spite
of the outcries of the Grand Inquisitor.
In the summer of 1577 it seemed as if Don John's
restless ambition would interrupt this pacific policy
which suited both monarchs. He had sent for the
Spanish troops again. He was known to be projecting
an invasion of England. He was said to have a
promise of help from Guise. Elizabeth's ministers, as
usual, believed that she was on the brink of ruin,
and implored her to send armies both to the Nether-
lands and to France. But she refused to be hustled into
any precipitate action, and reasons soon appeared for
maintaining an expectant attitude. The treaty of
Bergerac between Henry in. and Henry of Navarre
(September 1577) showed once more that the French
116 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
King had no intention of letting the Huguenots be
crushed. The invitation of the Archduke Matthias by
the Belgian nobles showed that they were deeply
jealous of English interference. Here, surely, was
matter for reflection. The most Elizabeth could be
got to do was to become security for a loan of
100,000 to the States, on condition that Matthias
should leave the real direction of affairs to William of
Orange, and to promise armed assistance (January 1578).
At the same time she informed Philip that she was
obliged to do this for her own safety ; that she had no
desire to contest his sovereignty of the Netherlands;
on the contrary, she would help him to maintain it if
he would govern reasonably ; but he ought to remove
Don John, who was her mortal enemy, and to appoint
another Governor of his own family ; in other words,
Matthias. Her policy could not have been more
candidly set forth, and Philip showed his disapproval
of Don John's designs in a characteristic way by
causing Escovedo to be assassinated. Don John him-
self died in the autumn, of a fever brought on by
disappointment, or, as some thought, of a complaint
similar to Escovedo's (September 1578).
When Elizabeth feared that Don John's scheme was
countenanced by his brother, she had risked an open
rupture by promising to send an army to the Nether-
lands. The murder of Escovedo and the arrival of
the Spanish ambassador Mendoza (March 1578) re-
assured her. Philip was evidently pacific to the point
of tameness. Instead, therefore, of sending an English
army, she preferred to pay John Casimir, the Count
Palatine, to lead a German army to the assistance of
VI FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 117
the States. As far as military strength went, they
were probably no losers by the change. But what
they wanted wap to see Elizabeth committed to open
war with Philip, and that was just what she desired to
avoid. Indirect and underhand blows she was pre-
pared to deal him, for she knew by experience that
he would put up with them. Thus in the preceding
autumn she had despatched Drake on his famous ex-
pedition to the South Pacific.
Don John was succeeded by his nephew, Alexander
of Parma. The fine prospects of the revolted pro-
vinces were now about to be dashed. In the arts
which smooth over difficulties and conciliate opposition,
Parma had few equals. He was a head and shoulders
above all contemporary generals; and no soldiers of
that time were comparable to his Spanish and Italian
veterans. When he assumed the command, he was t
master of only a small corner of the Low Countries.
What he effected is represented by their present
division between Belgians and Dutch. The struggle
in the Netherlands continued, therefore, to be the
principal object of Elizabeth's attention.
Shortly before the death of Don John, the Duke of
Ale^on, 1 brother and heir-presumptive of Henry in.
had been invited by the Belgian nobles to become
their Protector, and Orange, in his anxiety for union,
had accepted their nominee. Ale^on was to furnish
12,000 French troops. It was hoped and believed
that, though Henry had ostensibly disapproved of his
brother's action, he would in the end give him open
1 He had received the Duchy of Anjou in addition to that of
Alencon, and some historians call him by the former title.
118 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
support, thus resuming the enterprise which had been
interrupted six years before by the Bartholomew Mas-
sacre.
Now, how was Elizabeth to deal with this new
combination? The Protectorship of Ale^on might
bring on annexation to France, the result which most
of all she wished to avoid. For a moment she thought
of offering her own protection (which Orange would
have much preferred), and an army equal to that
promised by Alen9on. But upon further reflection,
she determined to adhere to the policy of not throw-
ing down the glove to Philip, and to try whether she
could not put Alen9on in harness, and make him do
her work. One means of effecting this would be to
allow him subsidies the means employed on such a
vast scale by Pitt in our wars with Napoleon. But
^Elizabeth intended to spend as little as possible in
this way. She relied chiefly on a revival of the
marriage comedy now to be played positively for
the last time ; the lady being forty-five, and her wooer
twenty-four.
A dignified policy it certainly was not. All that
was ridiculous and repulsive in her coquetry with
Henry had now to be repeated and outdone with
his younger brother. To overcome the incredulity
which her previous performances had produced, she
was obliged to exaggerate her protestations, to admit a
personal courtship, to simulate amorous emotion, and
to go through a tender pantomime of kisses and car
esses. But Elizabeth never let dignity stand in the
way of business. What to most women would have
been an insupportable humiliation did not cost her a
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 119
pang. She even found amusement in it. From the
nature of the case, she could not take one of her
counsellors into her confidence. There was no chance
of imposing upon foreigners unless she could persuade
those about her that she was in earnest. They were
amazed that she should run the risk of establishing the
French in the Netherlands. She had no intention of
doing so. When Philip should be brought so low as
to be willing to concede a constitutional government,
she could always throw her weight on his side and
get rid of the French.
The match with Alen9on had been proposed six
years before. It had lately slumbered. But there
was no difficulty in whistling him back, and making
it appear that the renewed overture came from his
side. After tedious negotiations, protracted over
twelve months, he at length paid his first visit to
Elizabeth (August 1579). He was an under-sized
man with an over-sized head, villainously ugly, with
a face deeply seamed by smallpox, a nose ending
in a knob that made it look like two noses, and a
croaking voice. Elizabeth's liking for big handsome
men is well known. But as she had not the least
intention of marrying Alen9on, it cost her nothing
to affirm that she was charmed with his appearance,
and that he was just the sort of man she could fancy
for a husband. The only agreeable thing about him
was his conversation, in which he shone, so that
people who did not thoroughly know him always
at first gave him credit for more ability than he
possessed. Elizabeth, who had a pet name for all
favourites, dubbed him her " frog " ; and " Grenouille "
120 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
he was fain to subscribe himself in his love-letters.
This first visit was a short one, and he went away
hopeful of success.
The English people could only judge by appear-
ances, and for the first time in her reign Elizabeth
was unpopular. The Puritan Stubbs published his
Discovery of a Gaping Gulf wherein England is like to
be swallowed by another French Marriage. But the
excitement was by no means confined to the Puritans.
Hatred of Frenchmen long remained a ruling senti-
ment with most Englishmen. Elizabeth vented her
rage on Stubbs, who had been so rude as to tell her
that childbirth at her age would endanger her life.
He was sentenced to have his hand cut off. "I re-
member," says Camden, "being then present, that
Stubbs, after his right hand was cut off, put off his
hat with his left, and said with a loud voice, 'God
save the Queen/ The multitude standing about was
deeply silent."
Not long after Alen9on's visit, a treaty of marriage
was signed (November 1579), with a proviso that
two months should be allowed for the Queen's subjects
to become reconciled to it. If, at the end of that
time, Elizabeth did not ratify the treaty, it was to
be null and void. The appointed time came and
went without ratification. Burghley, as usual, pre-
dicted that the jilted suitor would become a deadly
enemy, and drew an alarming picture of the dangers
that threatened England, with the old exhortation to
his mistress to form a Protestant league and subsidise
the Scotch Anglophiles. But in 1572 she had slipped
out of the Anjou marriage, and yet secured a French
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 121
alliance. She confided in her ability to play the same
game now. Though she had not ratified the marriage
treaty, she continued to correspond with Alen9on and
keep up his hopes, urging him at the same time to
lead an army to the help of the States. This, how-
ever, he was unwilling to do till he had secured the
marriage. The French King was ready, and even
eager, to back his brother. But he, too, insisted on
the marriage, and that Elizabeth should openly join
him in war against Spain.
In the summer of 1580, Philip conquered Portugal,
thus not only rounding off his Peninsular realm, but
acquiring the enormous transmarine dominions of the
Portuguese crown. All Europe was profoundly im-
pressed and alarmed by this apparent increase of his
power. Elizabeth incessantly lectured Henry on the
necessity of abating a preponderance so dangerous to
all other States, and tried to convince him that it
was specially incumbent on France to undertake the
enterprise. But she preached in vain. Henry steadily
refused to stir unless England would openly assist
him with troops and money, of which the marriage
was to be the pledge. He did not conceal his sus-
picion that, when Elizabeth had pushed him into
war, she would "draw her neck out of the collar"
and leave him to bear the whole danger.
This was, in fact, her intention. She believed that
a war with France would soon compel Philip to make
proper concessions to the States ; whereupon she
would interpose and dictate a peace. "Marry my
brother," Henry kept saying, "and then I shall have
security that you will bear your fair share of the
122 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
fighting and expenses." " If I am to go to war,"
argued Elizabeth, " I cannot marry your brother ; for
my subjects will say that I am dragged into it by my
husband, and they will grudge the expense. Suppose,
instead of a marriage, we have an alliance not binding
me to open war ; then I will furnish you with money
underhand. You know you have got to fight. You
cannot afford to let Philip go on increasing his power."
Henry remained doggedly firm. No marriage, no
war. At last, finding she could not stir him, Eliza-
beth again concluded a treaty of marriage, but with
the extraordinary proviso that six weeks should be
left for private explanations by letter between herself
and Alen^on. It soon appeared what this meant. In
these six weeks Elizabeth furnished her suitor with
money, and incited him to make a sudden attack on
Parma, who was then besieging Cambray, close to the
French frontier. Alencon, thinking himself now sure
of the marriage, collected 15,000 men; and Henry,
though not openly assisting him, no longer prohibited
the enterprise. But, as soon as Elizabeth thought
they were sufficiently committed, she gave them to
understand that the marriage must be again deferred,
that her subjects were discontented, that she could
only join in a defensive alliance, but that she would
furnish money " in reasonable sort " underhand.
All this is very unscrupulous, very shameless, even
for that shameless age. Hardened liars like Henry
and Alen9on thought it too bad. They were ready
for violence as well as fraud, and availed themselves
of whichever method came handiest. Elizabeth also
used the weapon which nature had given her. Being
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 123
constitutionally averse from any but peaceful methods,
she made up for it by a double dose of fraud. Dente
lupus, cornu taurus. It would have been useless for a
male statesman to try to pass himself off as a fickle
impulsive, susceptible being, swayed from one moment
to another in his political schemes by passions and
weaknesses that are thought natural in the other sex.
This was Elizabeth's advantage, and she made the
most of it. She was a masculine woman simulating,
when it suited her purpose, a feminine character. The >
men against whom she was matched were never sure
whether they were dealing with a crafty and determined
politician, or a vain, flighty, amorous woman. This un-
certainty was constantly putting them out in their cal-
culations. Alen^on would never have been so taken in if
he had not told himself that any folly might be expected
from an elderly woman enamoured of a young man.
On this occasion Elizabeth scored, if not the full suc-
cess she had hoped from her audacious mystification,
yet no inconsiderable portion of it. Henry managed to
draw back just in time, and was not let in for a big war.
But Alencon, at the head of 15,000 men, and close
to Cambray, could not for very shame beat a retreat.
Parma retired at his approach, and the French army
entered Cambray in triumph (August 1581). Alenori
therefore had been put in harness to some purpose.
Though Henry in. had good reason to complain
of the way he had been treated, he did not make it
a quarrel with Elizabeth. His interests, as she saw
all along, were too closely bound up with hers to
permit him to think of such a thing. On the con-
trary, he renewed the alliance of 1572 in an ampler
124 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
form, though it still remained strictly defensive.
Ale^on, after relieving and victualling Cambray, dis-
banded his army, and went over to England again
to press for the marriage (Nov. 1581). Thither
he was followed by ambassadors from the States.
By the advice of Orange they had resolved to take
him as their sovereign, and they were now urgently
pressing him to return to the Netherlands to be in-
stalled. Elizabeth added her pressure; but he was
unwilling to leave England until he should have
secured the marriage. For three months (Nov. 1581
Feb. 1582) did Elizabeth try every art to make
him accept promise for performance. She was thor-
oughly in her element. To win her game in this
way, not by the brutal arbitrament of war, or even
by the ordinary tricks of vicarious diplomacy, but by
artifices personally executed, feats of cajolery that
might seem improbable on the stage, this was de-
lightful in the highest degree. The more distrustful
Alen9on showed himself, the keener was the pleasure
of handling him. One day he is hidden behind a
curtain to view her elegant dancing ; not, surely, that
he might be smitten with it, but that he might think
she desired him to be smitten. Another day she
kisses him on the lips (en la boca) in the presence
of the French ambassador. She gives him a ring.
She presents him to her household as their future
master. She orders the Bishop of Lincoln to draw
up a marriage service. It is a repulsive spectacle;
but, after all, we are not so much disgusted with the
elderly woman who pretends to be willing to marry
the young man, as with the young man who is really
vi FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1583 125
willing to marry the elderly woman. Unfortunately
for Elizabeth, her acting was so realistic that it not
only took in contemporaries, but has persuaded many
modern writers that she was really influenced by a
degrading passion.
Henry in. himself was at last induced to believe
that Elizabeth was this time in earnest. But he could
not be driven from his determination to risk nothing
till he saw the marriage actually concluded. Pinart,
the French Secretary of State, was accordingly sent
over to settle the terms. Elizabeth demanded one
concession after another, and finally asked for the
restitution of Calais. There was no mistaking what
this meant. Pinart, in the King's name, formally
forbade Alen9on to proceed to the Netherlands except
as a married man, and tried to intimidate Elizabeth
by threatening that his master would ally himself
with Philip. But she laughed at him, and told him
that she could have the Spanish alliance whenever
she chose, which was perfectly true, Alenc/m him-
self gave way. He felt that he was being played
with. He had come over here, with a fatuitt not un-
common among young Frenchmen, expecting to bend
a love-sick Queen to serve his political designs. He
found himself, to his intense mortification, bent to
serve hers. Ashamed to show his face in France
without either his Belgian dominions or his English
wife, he was fain to accept Elizabeth's solemn promise
that she would marry him as soon as she could, and
allowed himself to be shipped off under the escort
of an English fleet to the Netherlands (Feb. 1582).
According to Mr. Froude, :% 'the Prince of Orange
126 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
intimated that Alei^on was accepted by the States
only as a pledge that England would support them;
if England failed them, they would not trust their
fortunes to so vain an idiot." This statement appears
to be drawn from the second-hand tattle of Mendoza,
and is probably, like much else from that source, un-
worthy of credit. But whether Orange sent such an
" intimation " or not, it cannot be allowed to weigh
against the ample evidence that Alen9on was accepted
by him and by the States mainly for the sake of the
French forces he could raise on his own account, and
the assistance which he undertook to procure from
his brother. Neither Orange nor any one else re-
garded him as an idiot. Orange had not been led
to expect that he would bring any help from England
except money supplied underhand ; and money Eliza-
beth did furnish in very considerable quantities. But
the Netherlander now expected everything to be
done for them, and were backward with their con-
tributions both in men and money. Clearly there is
something to be said for the let-alone policy to which
Elizabeth usually leant.
The States intended Ale^on's sovereignty to be
of the strictly constitutional kind, such as it had
been before the encroachments of Philip and his father.
This did not suit the young Frenchman, and at the
beginning of 1583 he attempted a coup-d'dtat, not
without encouragement from some of the Belgian
Catholics. At Antwerp his French troops were
defeated with great bloodshed by the citizens, and
the general voice of the country was for sending him
about his business. But both Elizabeth and Orange,
n FOREIGN AFFAIRS : 1572-1533 127
though disconcerted and disgusted by his treachery,
still saw nothing better to be done than to patch
up the breach and retain his services. Both of them
urged this course on the States Orange with his
usual dignified frankness; Elizabeth in the crooked,
blustering fashion which has brought upon her policy,
in so many instances, reproach which it does not
really deserve. Norris, the commander of the English
volunteers, had discountenanced the coup-d'tiat and
taken his orders from the States. Openly Elizabeth
reprimanded him, and ordered him to bring his men
back to England. Secretly she told him he had
done well, and bade him remain where he was.
Norris was in fact there to protect the interests of
England quite as much against the French as against
Spain. There is not the least ground for the assertion
that in promoting, a reconciliation with Alen9on, Orange
acted under pressure from Elizabeth. Everything goes
to show that he, the wisest and noblest statesman of
his time, thought it the only course open to the States,
unless they were prepared to submit to Philip. Both
Elizabeth and Orange felt that the first necessity was
to keep the quarrel alive between the Frenchman and
the Spaniard. The English Queen therefore continued
to feed Alen9on with hopes of marriage, and the States
patched up a reconciliation with him (March 1583).
But his heart failed him. He saw Parma taking town
after town. He knew that he had made himself
odious to the Netherlander. He was covered with
shame. He was fatally stricken with consumption.
In June 1583 he left Belgium never to return.
Within a twelvemonth he was dead.
CHAPTER VII
THE PAPAL ATTACK: 1570-1583
SOVEREIGNS and statesmen in the sixteenth century are
to be honoured or condemned according to the degree
in which they aimed on the one hand at preserving
political order, and on the other at allowing freedom
of opinion. It was not always easy to reconcile these
two aims. The first was a temporary necessity, and
yet was the more urgent as indeed is always the case
with the tasks of the statesman. He is responsible
for the present; it is not for him to attempt to
provide for a remote future. Political order and the
material well-being of nations may be disastrously
impaired by the imprudence or weakness of a ruler.
Thought, after all, may be trusted to take care of
itself in the long-run.
To the modern Liberal, with his doctrine of absolute
religious equality, toleration seems an insult, and any-
thing short of toleration is regarded as persecution.
In the sixteenth century the most advanced statesmen
did not see their way to proclaim freedom of public
worship and of religious discussion. It was much if
they tolerated freedom of opinion, and connived at
128
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 129
a quiet, private propagation of other religions than
those established by law. It would be wrong to
condemn and despise them as actuated by superstition
and narrow-minded prejudice. Their motives were
mainly political, and it is reasonable to suppose that
they knew better than we do whether a larger tolera-
tion was compatible with public order.
We have seen that under the Act of Supremacy, in
the first year of Elizabeth, the oath was only tendered
to persons holding office, spiritual or temporal, under
the crown, and that the penalty for refusing it was
only deprivation. But in her fifth year (1563), it was
enacted that the oath might be tendered to members
of the House of Commons, schoolmasters, and attorneys,
who, if they refused it, might be punished by forfeiture
of property and perpetual imprisonment. To those
who had held any ecclesiastical office, or who should
openly disapprove of the established worship, or cele-
brate or hear mass, the oath might be tendered a
second time, with the penalties of high treason for
refusal.
That this law authorised an atrocious persecution
cannot be disputed, and there is no doubt that many
zealous Protestants wished it to be enforced. But the
practical question is, Was it enforced ? The govern-
ment wished to be armed with the power of using it,
and for the purpose of expelling Catholics from offices
it was extensively used. But no one was at this time
visited with the severer penalties, the bishops having
been privately forbidden to tender the oath a second
time to any one without special instructions.
The A<it of Uniformity, passed in the first year of
130 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
Elizabeth, prohibited the use of any but the established
liturgy, whether in public or private, under pain of
perpetual imprisonment for the third offence, and
imposed a fine of one shilling on recusants that is,
upon persons who absented themselves from church on
Sundays and holidays. To what extent Catholics were
interfered with under this Act has been a matter of
much dispute. Most of them, during the first eleven
years of Elizabeth, either from ignorance or worldli-
ness, treated the Anglican service as equivalent to the
Catholic, and made no difficulty about attending church,
even after this compliance with the law had been for-
bidden by Pius IV. in the sixth year of Elizabeth.
Only the more scrupulous absented themselves, and
called in the ministrations of the "old priests," who
with more or less secrecy said mass in private houses.
Some of these offenders were certainly punished before
Elizabeth had been two years on the throne. The
enforcement of lav/s was by no means so uniform in
those days as it is now. Much depended on the lean-
ings of the noblemen and justices of the peace in
different localities. Both from disposition and policy
Elizabeth desired, as a general rule, to connive at
Catholic nonconformity when it did not take an ag-
gressive and fanatical form. But she had no scruple
about applying the penalties of these Acts to indivi-
duals who for any reason, religious or political, were
specially obnoxious to her.
So things went on till the northern insurrection :
the laws authorising a searching and sanguinary per-
secution; the Government, much to the disgust of
zealous Protestants, declining to put those laws in
I
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 131
execution. Judged by modern ideas, the position of
the Catholics was intolerable ; but if measured by the
principles of government then universally accepted, or
if compared with the treatment of persons ever so
slightly suspected of heresy in countries cursed with
the Inquisition, it was not a position of which they had
any great reason to complain; nor did the large
majority of them complain.
Pope Pius rv. (1559-1566) was comparatively cau-
tious and circumspect in his attitude towards Elizabeth.
But his successor Pius V. (1566-1572), having made
up his mind that her destruction was the one thing
necessary for the defeat of heresy in Europe, strove to
stir up against her rebellion at home and invasion from
abroad. A bull deposing her, and absolving her sub-
jects from their allegiance, was drawn up. But while
Pius, conscious of the offence which it would give to
all the sovereigns of Europe, delayed to issue it, the
northern rebellion flared up and was trampled out.
The absence of such a bull was by many Catholics
made an excuse for holding aloof from the rebel earls.
When it was too late the bull was issued (Feb. 1570).
Philip and Charles IX. sovereigns first and Catholics
afterwards refused to let it be published in their
dominions.
After the northern insurrection the Queen issued a
remarkable appeal to her people, which was ordered
to be placarded in every parish, and read in every
church. She could point with honest pride to eleven
years of such peace abroad and tranquillity at home
as no living Englishman could remember. Her
economy had enabled her to conduct the government
132 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
without any of the illegal exactions to which former
sovereigns had resorted. " She had never sought the
life, the blood, the goods, the houses, estates or lands
of any person in her dominions." This happy state of
things the rebels had tried to disturb on pretext of
religion. They had no real grievance on that score.
Attendance at parish church was indeed obligatory by
law, though, she might have added, it was very loosely
enforced. But she disclaimed any wish to pry into
opinions, or to inquire in what sense any one under-
stood rites or ceremonies. In other words, the language
of the communion service was not incompatible with
the doctrine of transubstantiation, and loyal Catholics
were at liberty, were almost invited, to interpret it in
that sense if they liked.
This compromise between their religious and political
obligations had in fact been hitherto adopted by the
large majority of English Catholics. But a time was
come when it was to be no longer possible for them.
They were summoned to make their choice between
their duty as citizens and their duty as Catholics.
The summons had come, not from the Queen, but from
the Pope, and it is not strange that they had thence-
forth a harder time of it. Many of them, indignant
with the Pope for bringing trouble upon them, gave up
the struggle and conformed to the Established Church.
The temper of the rest became more bitter and danger-
ous. The Puritan Parliament of 1571 passed a bill to
compel all persons not only to attend church, but to
receive the communion twice a year; and another
making formal reconciliation to the Church of Rome
high treason both for the convert and the priest who
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 138
should receive him. Here we have the persecuting
spirit, which was as inherent in the zealous Protestant
as in the zealous Catholic. Attempts to excuse such
legislation, as prompted by political reasons, can only
move the disgust of every honest-minded man. The
first of these bills did not receive the royal assent,
though Cecil just made Lord Burghley had strenu-
ously pushed it through the Upper House. Elizabeth
probably saw that its only effect would be to enable
the Protestant zealots in every parish to enjoy the
luxury of harassing their quiet Catholic neighbours,
who attended church but would scruple to take the
sacrament.
The Protestant spirit of this House of Commons
showed itself not only in laws for strengthening the
Government and persecuting the Catholics, but in at-
tempts to puritanise the Prayer-book, which much
displeased the Queen. Strickland, one of the Puritan
leaders, was forbidden to attend the House. But such
was the irritation caused by this invasion of its privi-
leges, that the prohibition was removed after one day.
It was in this session of Parliament that the doctrines
of the Church of England were finally determined by
the imposition on the clergy of the Thirty-nine Articles,
which, as every one knows, are much more Protestant
than the Prayer-book. Till then they had only had
the sanction of Convocation.
During the first forty years or so, from the beginning
of the Eeformation, Protestantism spread in most parts
of Europe with great rapidity. It was not merely an
intellectual revolt against doctrines no longer credible.
The numbers of the reformers were swelled, and their
134 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
force intensified by the flocking in of pious souls,
athirst for personal holiness, and of many others who,
without being high-wrought enthusiasts, were by nature
disposed to value whatever seemed to make for a purer
morality. The religion which had nurtured Bernard
and A Kempis was deserted, not merely as being
untrue, but as incompatible with the highest spiritual
life nay, as positively corrupting to society. This
imagination, of course, had but a short day. The
return to the Bible and the doctrines of primitive
Christianity, the deliverance from " the Bishop of Kome
and his detestable enormities," were not found to be
followed by any general improvement of morals in
Protestant countries. He that was unjust was unjust
still ; he that was filthy was filthy still. The repulsive
contrast too often seen between sanctimonious profes-
sions and unscrupulous conduct contributed to the
disenchantment.
In the meanwhile a great regeneration was going on
within the Catholic Church itself. Signs of this can
be detected quite as early as the first rise of Protes-
tantism. It is, therefore, not to be attributed to
Protestant teaching and example, though doubtless the
rivalry of the younger religion stimulated the best
energies of the older. No long time elapsed before
this regeneration had worked its way to the highest
places in the Church. The Popes by whom Elizabeth
was confronted were all men of pure lives and single-
hearted devotion to the Catholic cause.
The last two years of the Council of Trent (1562-3)
were the starting-point of the modern Catholic Church.
Many proposals had been made for compromise with
vn THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 135
Protestantism. But the Fathers of Trent saw that
che only chance of survival for a Church claiming to
be Catholic was to remain on the old lines. By the
canons and decrees of the Council, ratified by Pius IV.,
the old doctrines and discipline were confirmed and
definitely formulated. One branch indeed of the
Papal power was irretrievably gone. Royal authority
had become absolute, and the kings, including Philip II.,
refused to tolerate any interference with it. The
Papacy had to acquiesce in the loss of its power over
sovereigns. But as regards the bishops and clergy, and
things strictly appertaining to religion, its spiritual
autocracy, which the great councils of the last century
had aimed at breaking, was re-established, and has con-
tinued. The new situation, though it seemed to place
the Popes on a humbler footing than in the days of
Gregory vii. or Innocent in., was a healthy one. It
confined them to their spiritual domain, and drove
them to make the best of it.
Until the decrees of the Council of Trent, the split
between Protestants and Catholics was not definitely
and irrevocably decided. Many on both sides had
shrunk from admitting it. The Catholic world might
seem to be narrowed by the defection of the Protestant
States. But all the more clearly did it appear that a
Church claiming to be universal is not concerned with
political boundaries. The resistance to the spread of
heresy had hitherto consisted of many local struggles,
in which the repressive measures had emanated from
the orthodox sovereigns, and had therefore been fitful
and unconnected. But not long after the Tridentine
reorganisation, the Pope appears again as commander-
136 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
in-chief of the Catholic forces, surveying and directing
combined operations from one end of Europe to the
other. Pius IV. had been with difficulty prevented
by Philip from excommunicating Elizabeth. Pius V.
had launched his bull, as we have seen, a few months
too late (1570); and even then it was not allowed to
be published in either Spain or France. The life of
that Pope was wasted in earnest remonstrances with
the Catholic sovereigns for not executing the sentence
of the Church against the heretic Queen. Gregory XIIL,
who succeeded him just before the Bartholomew
Massacre, took the attack into his own hands. He
was a warm patron of the Jesuits, who were especially
devoted to the centralising- system re-established at
Trent. He and they had made up their minds that
England was the key of the Protestant position that
until Elizabeth was removed no advance was to be
hoped for anywhere.
The decline of a religion may be accompanied by a
positive increase of earnestness and activity on the
part of its remaining votaries, deluding them into a
belief that they are but passing through, or have
successfully passed through, a period of temporary
depression and eclipse. Among the Catholics of the
latter part of the sixteenth century there was all the
enthusiasm of a religious revival. In no place did
this show itself more than at Oxford. There the
weak points of popular movements have never been
allowed to pass without challenge, and what is really
valuable or beautiful in time-worn faiths has been
sure of receiving fair-play and something more. The
gloss of the Reformation was already worn off. The
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 137
worldly and carnal were its supporters and directors.
It no longer demanded enthusiasm and sacrifice. It
walked in purple and fine linen. Young men of quick
intellect and high aspirations who, a generation earlier,
would have been captivated by its fair promise and
have thrown themselves into its current, yielded now
to the eternal spell of the older Church, cleansed as
she was of her pollutions, and purged of her dross by
the discipline of adversity.
The leader of these Oxford enthusiasts was a young
fellow of Oriel, William Allen. In the third year of
Elizabeth, at the age of twenty-eight, he resigned the
Principalship of St. Mary Hall. The next eight years
were spent partly abroad, partly in secret missionary
work in England, carried on at the peril of his life.
The old priests, who with more or less concealment
and danger continued to exercise their office among the
English Catholics, were gradually dying off. In order
to train successors to them, Allen founded an English
seminary at Douai (1568). To this important step it
was mainly due that the Catholic religion did not
become extinct in this country. In the first five years
of its existence the college at Douai sent nearly a
hundred priests to England.
It was the aim of Allen to put an end to the
practical toleration allowed to Catholic laymen of the
quieter sort. The Catholic who began by putting in
the compulsory number of attendances at his parish
church was likely to end by giving up his faith alto-
gether. If he did not, his son would. Allen delibe-
rately preferred a sweeping persecution one that would
make the position of Catholics intolerable, and ripen
138 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
them for rebellion. He wanted martyrs. The ardent
young men whom he trained at Douai and (after 1578)
at Rheims, went back to their native land with the
clear understanding that of all the services they could
render to the Church the greatest would be to die
under the hangman's knife.
Gregory xni. hoped great things from Allen's
seminary, and furnished funds for its support. In
1579 Allen went to Some, and enlisted the support
of Mercurian, General of the Jesuits. Two English
Jesuits, Robert Parsons and Edward Campion, ex-
fellows of Balliol and St. John's, were selected as
missionaries. Campion was eight years younger than
Allen. He had had a brilliant career at Oxford, being
especially distinguished for his eloquence. He was at
that time personally known to both Cecil and the
Queen, and enjoyed their favour. He took deacon's
orders in 1568, but not long afterwards joined Allen
at Douai, and formally abjured the Anglican Church.
He had been six years a Jesuit when he was despatched
on his dangerous mission to England.
Tired of waiting for the initiative of Philip, Gregory
XIII. and the Jesuits had planned a threefold attack
on Elizabeth in England, Scotland, and Ireland. In
England a revivalist movement was to be carried on
among the Catholics by the missionaries. Catholic
writers have been at great pains to argue that this
was a purely religious movement, prosecuted with the
single object of saving souls. The Jesuits have always
known their men and employed them with discrimina-
tion. Saving of souls was very likely the simple
object of a man of Campion's saintly and exalted
vn THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 139
nature. He himself declared that he had heen strictly
forbidden to meddle with worldly concerns or affairs
of State, and nothing inconsistent with this declaration
was proved against him at his trial. But without
laying any stress on statements extracted from pri-
soners under torture, we cannot doubt that his em-
ployers aimed at re-establishing Catholicism in England
by rebellion and foreign invasion. This was thoroughly
understood by every missionary who crossed the sea;
and if Campion never alluded to it even in his most
familiar conversations he must have had an extra-
ordinary control over his tongue.
The evidence that the assassination of the Queen
was a recognised part of the Jesuit plan, determined
by the master spirits and accepted by all the sub-
ordinate agents, is perhaps not quite conclusive. If
proved, it would only show that they were not more
scrupulous than most statesmen and politicians of the
time. Lax as sixteenth century notions were about
political murder, there were always some consciences
more tender than others. It is likely enough that
Campion personally disapproved of such projects, and
that they were not thrust upon his attention. But he
can hardly have avoided being aware that they were
contemplated by the less squeamish of his brethren.
Campion and Parsons came to England in disguise
in the summer of 1580. Their mission was not a
success. It only served to show how much more
securely Elizabeth was seated on her throne than in
the earlier years of her reign. In his letters to Eome,
Campion boasts of the welcome he met with every-
where, the crowds that attended his preaching, the
140 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
ardour of the Catholics, and the disrepute into which
Protestantism was falling. He had evidently worked
himself up to such a state of ecstasy that he was
living in a world of his own imagination, and was no
competent witness of facts. He crept about England
in various disguises, and when he was in districts
where the nobles and gentry favoured the old religion,
he preached with a publicity which seems extra-
ordinary to us in these days when the laws are
executed with prompt uniformity by means of rail-
ways, telegraphs, and a well-organised police. In the .
sixteenth century England had nothing that can be
called an organised machinery for the prevention and
detection of crime. If an outbreak occurred the
Government collected militia, and trampled it out with
an energy that took no account of law and feared no
consequences. But in ordinary times it had to depend
on the local justices of the peace and parish constables,
and if they were remiss the laws were a dead letter.
There were no newspapers. The high-roads were few
and bad. One parish did not know what was going
on in the next. Campion could be passed on from one
gentleman's house to another on horses quite as good
as any officer of the Government rode, and could travel
all over England without ever using a high-road or
showing his face in a town. If he preached to a
hundred people in some Lancashire village, Lord Derby
did not want to know it, and before the news reached
Burghley or Walsingham he would be in another
county, or perhaps back in London then, as now, the
safest of all hiding-places. Thus, though a warrant
was issued for his arrest as soon as he arrived in
VTI THE PAPAL ATTACK: 1570-1583 141
England, it was not till July in the next year (1581)
that he was taken, after an unusually public and pro-
tracted appearance in the neighbourhood of Oxford.
He had little or nothing to show for his twelve
months' tour, and this although the Government had,
as Allen hoped, allowed itself to be provoked into an
increase of severity which seems to have been quite
unnecessary. The large majority of Catholic laymen
would evidently have preferred that both Seminarists
and Jesuits should keep away. They did not want
civil war. They did not want to be persecuted.
They were against a foreign invasion, without which
they knew very well that Elizabeth could not be
deposed. They were even loyal to her. They were
content to wait till she should disappear in the course
of nature and make room for the Queen of Scots.
Mendoza writes to Philip that " they place them-
selves in the hands of God, and are willing to sacrifice
life and all in the service, hit scarcely with that burning
zeal which they ought to show."
By the bull of Pius v., Englishmen were forbidden
to acknowledge Elizabeth as their Queen ; in other
words, they were ordered to expose themselves to the
penalties of treason. If the Pope would be satisfied
with nothing less than this, it was quite certain that
he would alienate most of his followers in England.
Gregory XIII. therefore had authorised the Jesuits to
explain that although the Protestants, by willingly
acknowledging the Queen, were incurring the damna-
tion pronounced by the bull, Catholics would be
excused for unwillingly acknowledging her until some
opportunity arrived for dethroning her. Protestant
142 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
writers have exclaimed against this distinction as
treacherous. It was perfectly reasonable. It repre-
sents, for instance, the attitude of every Alsatian who
accords an unwilling recognition to the German
Emperor. But the English Government intolerantly
and unwisely made it the occasion for harassing the
consciences of men who were most of them guiltless
of any intention to rebel.
Amongst other persecuting laws passed early in
1581, was one which raised the fine for non-attendance
at church to twenty pounds a month. Such a measure
was calculated to excite much more wide-spread dis-
affection than the hanging of a few priests. It was
not intended to be a Irutum fulmen. The names of
all recusants in each parish were returned to the
Council. They amounted to about 50,000, and the
fines exacted became a not inconsiderable item in the
royal revenue. That number certainly formed but a
small portion of the Catholic population. But if all
the rest had been in the habit of going to church,
contrary to the Pope's express injunction, rather than
pay a small fine, the Government ought to have seen
that they were not the stuff of which rebels are made.
Campion, after being compelled by torture to disclose
the names of his hosts in different counties, was called
on to maintain the Catholic doctrines in a three days'
discussion before a large audience against four Protes-
tant divines, who do not seem to have been ashamed
of themselves. He was offered pardon if he would
attend once in church. As he steadfastly refused, he
was racked again till his limbs were dislocated. When
he had partially recovered he was put on his trial.
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 143
along with several of his companions, not under any
of the recent anti- catholic laws but under the ordinary
statute of Edward in., for " compassing and imagining
the Queen's death " such a horror had the Burghleys
and Walsinghams of anything like religious persecu-
tion ! Being unable to hold up his hand to plead Not
Guilty, " two of his companions raised it for him, first
kissing the broken joints." According to Mendoza
(whom on other occasions we are invitfed to accept as
a witness of truth), his nails had been torn from his
fingers. Apart from his religious belief nothing
treasonable was proved against him in deed or word.
He acknowledged Elizabeth for his rightful sovereign,
as the new interpretation of the papal bull permitted
him to do, but he declined to give any opinion about
the Pope's right to depose princes. This was enough
for the judge and jury, and he was found guilty. At
the place of execution he was again offered his pardon
if he would deny the papal right of deposition, or even
hear a Protestant sermon. He wished the Queen a
long and quiet reign and all prosperity, but more he
would not say. At the quartering " a drop of blood
spirted on the clothes of a youth named Henry Wai-
pole, to whom it came as a divine command. Walpole,
converted on the spot, became a Jesuit, and soon after
met the same fate on the same spot."
Mr. Froude's comment is that " if it be lawful in
defence of national independence to kill open enemies
in war, it is more lawful to execute the secret con-
spirator who is teaching doctrines in the name of God
which are certain to be fatal to it." It would perhaps
be enough to remark that this reasoning amply justifies
144 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
some of the worst atrocities of the French Revolution.
Hallam and Macaulay have condemned it by anticipa-
tion in language which will commend itself to all who
are not swayed by religious, or, what is more offensive,
anti-religious bigotry. 1
Cruel as the English criminal law was, and long
remained, it never authorised the use of torture to
extract confession. The rack in the Tower is said to
have made its appearance, with other innovations of
absolute government, in the reign of Edward IV. But
it seems to have been little used before the reign of
Elizabeth, under whom it became the ordinary pre-
liminary to a political trial. For this the chief blame
must rest personally on Burghley. Opinions may
differ as to his rank as a statesman, but no one will
contest his eminent talents as a minister of police. In
the former capacity he had sufficient sense of shame
to publish a Pecksniffian apology for his employment
of the rack. " None," he says, " of those who were at
any time put to the rack were asked, during their
torture, any question as to points of doctrine, but
merely concerning their plots and conspiracies, and
the persons with whom they had dealings, and what was
their own opinion as to the Pope's right to deprive the
Queen of her crown." What was this but a point of
doctrine ? The wretched victim who conscientiously
believed it (as all Christendom once did), but wished
to save himself by silence, was driven either to tell a
lie or to consign himself to rope and knife. " The
Queen's servants, the warders, whose office and act it
i Hallam, Constitutional History, Chapter ni. Macaulay, Mssay
on Hallam's Constitutional History.
VTI THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 145
is to handle the rack, were ever, by those that attended
the examinations, specially charged to use it in so
charitable a manner as such a thing might be." It
may be hoped that there are not many who would
dissent from Hallam's remark that " such miserable
excuses serve only to mingle contempt with our
detestation." He adds : " It is due to Elizabeth to
observe that she ordered the torture to be disused."
I do not know what authority there is for this state-
ment. Three years later the Protestant Archbishop
of Dublin was puzzled how to torture the Catholic
Archbishop of Cashel, because there was no " rack
or other engine " in Dublin. Walsingham, on being
consulted, suggested that his feet might be toasted
against the fire, which was accordingly done. Some
of the Anglican bishops, as might be expected from
fanatics, were forward in recommending torture. But
Cecil was no more of a fanatic than his mistress. What
both of them cared for was not a particular religious
belief they had both of them conformed to Popery
under Queen Mary but the sovereign's claim to pre-
scribe religious belief, or rather religious profession,
and they were provoked with the missionaries for
thwarting them. Provoking it was, no doubt. But
everything seems to show that it would have been
better to pursue the earlier policy of the reign ; to be
content with enacting severe laws which practically
were not put into execution.
The English branch of the Jesuit attack was, for
political purposes, a dead failure. A few persons of
rank, who at heart were Catholics before, were form-
ally reconciled to the Pope. Mendoza claims that
K
146 . QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
among them were six peers whose names he conceals.
These peers, if he is to be believed, were treasonable
enough in their designs. But, even by his account,
they were determined not to stir unless a foreign
army should have first entered England.
How far Mendoza' s master was from seeing his way
to attack England at this time was strikingly shown
by his behaviour under the most audacious outrage
that Elizabeth had yet inflicted on him. Some twelve
months before (October 1580), Drake had returned
from his famous voyage round the world. That
voyage was nothing else than a piratical expedition,
for which it was notorious that the funds had been
mainly furnished by Elizabeth and Leicester. On
sea and land Drake had robbed Philip of gold, silver,
and precious stones to the value of at least 750,000.
In vain did Mendoza clamour for restitution and talk
about war. Elizabeth kept the booty, knighted Drake,
and. openly showed him every mark of confidence and
favour. When Mendoza told her that as she would
not hear words, they must come to cannon and see
if she would hear them, she replied ( " quietly in her
most natural voice ") that, if he used threats of that
kind, she would throw him into prison. The corre-
spondence between the Spanish ambassador and his
master shows that, however big they might talk about
cannon, they felt themselves paralysed by Elizabeth's
intimate relations with France. She had managed
to keep free from any offensive alliance with Henry in.
But at the first sound of the Spanish cannon she
could have it. She was, therefore, secure. Probably
the whole history of diplomacy does not show another
vn THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 147
instance of such a complicated balance of forces so
dexterously manipulated.
The Irish branch of the Papal attack, the landing
of the legate Sanders, the insurrection of Desmond
(1579-1583), the massacre of the Pope's Italian sol-
diers at Smerwick (1580), must be passed over here.
It is enough to say that, in Ireland, too, the Catholics
were beaten. We turn now to their attempt to get
hold of Scotland (1579-1582).
Scotland was in a state of anarchy, from which it
could only be rescued by an able and courageous king.
The nobles, instead of becoming weaker, as elsewhere,
had acquired a strength and independence greater
even than their fathers had enjoyed. Thirty years
earlier, the Church had possessed quite half the land
of the country, and had steadily supported the crown.
Almost the whole of this wealth had been seized in
one form or another by the nobles. And though, as
compared with English noblemen, they were still poor
in money, they were much bigger men relatively to
their sovereign. The power of the crown was exten-
sive enough in theory. What was wanted was a king
who should know how to convert it into a reality.
That was more than any regent could do. Even
Moray had not succeeded. The house of Douglas
was one of the most powerful in Scotland, and Mor-
ton, who had been looked on as its head during the
minority of the Earl of Angus, was an able and
daring man. But he had not the large views, the
public spirit, or the integrity of Moray. He was
feared by all, hated by many, respected by none.
As a mere party chief, no one would have been better
148 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
able to hold his own. As representing the crown,
he had every man's hand against him. To subsidise
such a man was perfectly useless. If Elizabeth was
to make his cause her own, she might just as well
undertake the conquest of Scotland at once.
The essence of the good understanding between
England and France was that both countries should
keep their hands off Scotland. Elizabeth, knowing
that if worst came to worst, she could always be
beforehand with France in the northern kingdom,
could afford to respect this arrangement, and she did
mean to respect it. France, on the other hand, being
also well aware of the advantage given to England
by geographical situation, was always tempted to steal
a march on her, and even when most desirous of her
alliance, never quite gave up intrigues in Scotland.
This was equally the case whatever party was upper-
most at the French court, whether its policy was being
directed by the King or by the Duke of Guise.
The Jesuits looked on Guise as their fighting man,
who was to do the work which they could not prevail
on crowned heads to undertake. James, though only
thirteen, had been declared of age. It was too late
to think of deposing him. If his character was feeble,
his understanding and acquirements were much beyond
his years, and his preferences were already a force to
be reckoned with in Scotch politics. His interests
were evidently opposed to those of his mother. But
the Jesuits hoped to persuade him that his seat would
never be secure unless he came to a compromise with
her on the terms that he was to accept the crown as
her gift arid recognise her joint-sovereignty. This
vu THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 149
would throw him entirely into the hands of the
Catholic nobles, and would be a virtual declaration
of war against Elizabeth. He would have to pro-
claim himself a Catholic, and call in the French. It
was hoped that Philip, jealous though he had always
been of French interference, would not object to an
expedition warranted by the Jesuits and commanded
by Guise, who was more and more sinking into a tool
of Spain and Kome. A combined army of Scotch and
French would pour across the Border. It would be
joined by the English Catholics. Elizabeth would be
deposed, and Mary set on the throne.
It was a pretty scheme on paper, but certain to
break down in every stage of its execution. James
might chaffer with his mother; but, young as he
was, he knew well that she meant to overreach him.
He would be glad enough to get rid of Morton, but
he did not want to be a puppet in the hands of the
Marians. He did not like the Presbyterian preachers ;
but the young pedant already valued himself on his
skill in confuting the apologists of Popery. He re-
sented Elizabeth's lectures; but he knew that his
succession to the English crown depended on her good
will, and he meant to keep on good terms with her.
No approval of the scheme could be obtained from
Philip, and if he did not peremptorily forbid the
expedition, it was because he did not believe it would
come off. If a French army had appeared in Scot-
land, it would have been treated as all foreigners
were in that country. And finally, if, per impossibile,
the French and Scotch had entered England, they
would have been overwhelmed by such an unanimous
150 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
uprising of the English people of all parties and creeds
as had never been witnessed in our history.
Historians, who would have us believe that Eliza-
beth was constantly bringing England to the verge of
ruin by her stinginess and want of spirit, represent
this combination as highly formidable. It required
careful watching ; but the only thing that could make
it really dangerous was rash and premature employ-
ment of force by England the course advocated not
only by Burghley, but by the whole Council. Eliza-
beth seems to have stood absolutely alone in her
opinion; but here, as always, though she allowed her
ministers to speak their minds freely, she did not fear
to act on her own judgment against their unanimous
advice.
To carry out their schemes, Guise and the Jesuits
sent to Scotland a nephew of the late Kegent Lennox,
Esme Stuart, who had been brought up in France,
and bore the title of Count d'Aubigny (September
1579). He speedily won the heart of the King, who
created him Earl, and afterwards Duke of Lennox.
Elizabeth soon obtained proof of his designs, and
urged Morton to resist them by force. But the
favourite, professing to be converted to Protestantism,
enlisted the preachers on his side, and, by this un-
natural coalition, Morton was brought to the scaffold
(June 1581). During the interval between his arrest
and execution, the English Council were urgent with
Elizabeth to invade Scotland, rescue the Anglophile
leader, and crush Lennox. She went all lengths in
the way of threats. Lord Hunsdon was even ordered
to muster an army on the Border. But this last step
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK i 1570-1583 151
at once produced an energetic protest from the French
ambassador ; and in Scotland there was a general rally
of all parties against the "auld enemies." Elizabeth
had never meant to make her threats good, and Mor-
ton was left to his fate. She was quite right not to
invade Scotland; but, that being her intention, she
should not have tempted Morton to treason by the
promise of her protection. No male statesman would
have been so insensible to dishonour.
The death of the man who, next to Moray, had
been the mainstay of the Reformation and the scourge
of the Marian party, was received with a shout of
exultation from Catholic Europe. Already in their
heated imaginations the Jesuits saw the Kirk over-
thrown and the vantage ground gained for an attack
on England. Some modern historians with less
excuse, since they have the sequel before their eyes
make the same blunder. The situation was really
unchanged. Morton, who had the true antipathy of a
Scottish noble to clerics of all sorts, had plundered
the Kirk ministers, and tried to bring them under
the episcopal yoke. He had quarrelled with most of
his old associates of the Congregation. It was their
enmity quite as much as the attack of Lennox that
had pulled him down. When he was out of the
way they naturally reverted to an Anglophile policy.
The weakness of the Catholic party was plainly
shown by the fact that Lennox himself, the pupil
of the Jesuits, never ventured to throw off the
disguise of a heretic.
The further development of the Jesuit scheme met
with difficulties on all sides. Most even of the
152 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
Catholic lords were alarmed by the suggestion that
James should hold the crown by the gift of his
mother, because it would imply that hitherto he had
not been lawful King; and this would invalidate
their titles to all the lands they had grabbed from
Church and crown during the last fourteen years.
It would seem therefore that, if they had harassed
the Government during all that time, it was from a
liking for anarchy rather than from attachment to
Mary. Two Jesuits, Crichton and Holt, who were
sent in disguise to Scotland, found Lennox desponding.
He was obliged to confess that, greatly as he had
fascinated the King, he could not move him an inch
in his religious opinions. On the contrary, James
imagined that his controversial skill had converted
Lennox, and was extremely proud of the feat. The
only course remaining was to seize him, and send
him to France or Spain, Lennox in the meantime
administering the Government in the name of Mary.
But to carry out this stroke, Lennox said he must
have a foreign army. In view of the mutual jealousy
of France and Spain it was suggested that, if Philip
would furnish money underhand, the Pope might send
an Italian army direct to Scotland, vid the Straits of
Gibraltar. Crichton went to Rome to arrange this
precious scheme, and Holt was proceeding to Madrid.
But Philip forbade him to come. If Lennox could
convert James, or send him to Spain, well and good.
But until one of these preliminaries was accomplished
he was to expect no help from Philip. Nor were
prospects more hopeful on the side of France. Mary
from her prison implored Guise to undertake the
vn THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 153
long-planned expedition. But he would not venture
it without the assent of his own sovereign and the
King of Spain. While he was hesitating, the Anglo-
philes patched up their differences and got posses-
sion of the King's person (Raid of Ruthven, August
1582). His tears were unavailing. "Better bairns
greet," said the Master of Glamis, "than bearded
men." The favourite fled to France, where he died
in the next year.
Thus once more had it been clearly shown that if
the Anglophiles were left to depend on themselves
they would not fail to do all that was necessary
to safeguard English interests. " Anglophiles " is a
convenient appellation. But, strictly speaking, there
was no party in Scotland that loved England. There
was a religious party to whom it was of the highest
importance that Elizabeth should be safe and power-
ful. She was therefore certain of its co-operation.
This party would not be always uppermost; for
Scottish nobles were too selfish, too treacherous, too
much interested in disorder to permit any stability.
But, whether in power or in opposition, it would be
able and it would be obliged to serve English inter-
ests. There was only one way in which it could be
paralysed or alienated, and that was by a recurrence
on the part of England to the traditions of armed
interference inherited by Elizabeth's councillors from
Henry vm. and the Protector Somerset.
Such is the plain history of this Jesuit and Papal
scheme which we are asked to believe was so danger-
ous to England and so inadequately handled by Eliza-
beth. She had not shown much concern for her
154 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
honour. But her coolness, her intrepidity, her correct
estimate of the forces with which she had to deal, her
magnificent confidence in her own judgment, saved
England from the endless expenditure of blood and
treasure into which her advisers would have plunged,
and prolonged the formal peace with her three prin-
cipal neighbours, a peace of already unexampled dura-
tion, and of incalculable advantage to her country.
The policy which Elizabeth had thus deliberately
adopted towards Scotland she persisted in. The
successful Anglophiles clamoured for pensions, and
her ministers were for gratifying them. She was
willing to give a moderate pension to James, but
not a penny to the nobles. "Her servants and
favourites," she said, "professed to love her for her
high qualities, Alengon for her beauty, and the Scots
for her crown ; but they all wanted the same thing
in the end ; they wanted nothing but her money, and
they should not have it." She had ascertained that
James regarded his mother as his rival for the crowns
of both kingdoms, and that, whatever he might some-
times pretend, his real wish was that she should be
kept under lock and key. She had also satisfied
herself that the Scottish noblemen on whom Mary
counted would, with very few exceptions, throw every
difficulty in the way of her restoration, out of regard
for their own private interests the only datum from
which it was safe to calculate in dealing with a
Scottish nobleman. She therefore felt herself secure.
By communicating her knowledge to Mary she could
show her the hopelessness of her intrigues in Scotland ;
while a resumption of friendly negotiations for her
vii THE PAPAL ATTACK : 1570-1583 155
restoration would always be a cheap and effectual way
of intimidating James. Thus she could look on with
equanimity when his new favourite Stewart, Earl of
Arran, 1 again chased the Anglophiles into England
(December 1583). Arran himself urgently entreated
her to accept him and his young master as the genuine
Anglophiles. Walsingham's voice was still for war.
But, with both factions at her feet and suing for her
favour, Elizabeth had good reason to be satisfied with
her policy of leaving the Scottish nobles to worry it
out among themselves.
1 James had given this man the title and estates of the eziled
Hamilton*.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PROTECTORATE OF THE NETHERLANDS: 1584-86
WE are now approaching the great crisis of the reign
some may think of English history the grand struggle
with Spain ; a struggle which, if Elizabeth had allowed
herself to be guided by her most celebrated coun-
sellors, would have been entered upon a quarter of
a century earlier. England was then unarmed and
weighed down with a load of debt, the legacy of three
thriftless and pugnacious reigns. The population was
still mainly Catholic. The great nobles still thought
themselves a match for the crown, and many of them
longed to make one more effort to assert their old
position in the State. Trade and industry were lan-
guishing. The poorer classes were suffering and discon-
tented. Scotland was in the hands of a most dangerous
enemy, whose title to the English crown was held
by many to be better than Elizabeth's. Philip II.,
as yet unharassed by revolt, seemed almost to have
drawn England as a sort of satellite into the vast orbit
of his empire.
Nearly a generation had now passed away since
Elizabeth ascended the throne. Every year of it had
156
rni PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS: 1584-86 157
seen some amendment in the condition of the country.
Under a pacific and thrifty Government taxation had
been light beyond precedent. All debts, even those
of Henry vili., had been honourably paid off". While
the lord of American gold mines and of the richest
commercial centres in Europe could not raise a loan on
any terms, Elizabeth could borrow when she pleased
at five per cent. But she had ceased to borrow, for
she had a modest surplus stored in her treasury, a
department of the administration managed under her
own close personal supervision. A numerous militia
had been enrolled and partially trained. Large maga-
zines of arms had been accumulated. A navy had been
created ; not a large one indeed ; but it did not need
to be large, for the warship of those days did not differ
from the ordinary vessel of commerce, nor was its
crew differently trained. The royal navy could there-
fore be indefinitely increased if need arose. Philip's
great generals, Alva and Parma, had long come to the
conclusion that the conquest of England would be the
most difficult enterprise their master could undertake.
The wealth of landed proprietors and traders had
increased enormously. New manufactures had been
started by exiles from the Netherlands. New branches
of foreign commerce had been opened up. The poor
were well employed and contented. I believe it would
be impossible to find in the previous history of Eng-
land, or, for that matter, of Europe, since the fall of
the Roman Empire, any instance of peace, prosperity,
and good government extending over so many years.
Looking abroad we find that in all directions the
strength and security of Elizabeth's position had beeu
158 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
immensely increased. Her ministers, especially Wal-
singham for Burghley in his old age came at last to
see more with the eyes of his mistress believed that
by a more spirited policy Scotland might have been
converted into a submissive and valuable ally. Eliza-
beth alone saw that this was impossible ; that, so
treated, Scotland would become to England what
Holland was to Philip, what "the Spanish ulcer"
was afterwards to Napoleon a fatal drain on her
strength and resources. It was enough for Elizabeth
if the northern kingdom was so handled as to be
harmless ; and this, as I have shown, was in fact its
condition from the moment that the only Scottish
ruler who could be really dangerous was locked up in
England.
The Dutch revolt crippled Philip. The conquest of
England was postponed till the Dutch revolt should
be suppressed. Why then, it has been asked, did not
Elizabeth support the Dutch more vigorously? The
answer is a simple one. If she had done so the
suppression of the Dutch revolt would have been
postponed to the conquest of England. This is proved
by the events now to be related. Elizabeth was
obliged by new circumstances to intervene more vigor-
ously in the Netherlands, and the result was the
Armada. If the attack had come ten or fifteen years
earlier the fortune of England might have been
different.
Elizabeth's foreign policy has been judged unfavour-
ably by writers who have failed to keep in view how
completely it turned on her relations with France.
Though her interests and those of Henry III. cannot
viii PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS: 1584-86 15S
be called identical, they coincided sufficiently to make
it possible to keep up a good understanding which
was of the highest advantage to both countries. But
to maintain this good understanding there was need
of the coolest temper and judgment on the part of
the rulers; for the two peoples were hopelessly hos-
tile. They were like two gamecocks in adjoining
pens. The Spaniards were respected and liked by
our countrymen. Their grave dignity, even their stiff
assumption of intrinsic superiority, were too like our
own not to awake a certain appreciative sympathy.
Whereas all Englishmen from peer to peasant would
at any time have enjoyed a tussle with France, until
its burdens began to be felt.
Henry in., with whom the Valois dynasty was
about to expire, was far from being the incompetent
driveller depicted by most historians. He had good
abilities, plenty of natural courage when roused, and
a thorough comprehension of the politics of his day.
His aims and plans were well conceived. But with no
child to care for, and immersed in degrading self-
indulgence, he wearied of the exertions and sacrifices
necessary for carrying them through. Short spells of
sensible and energetic action were succeeded by periods
of unworthy lassitude and pusillanimous surrender.
Before he came to the throne he had been the chief
organiser of the Bartholomew Massacre. As King he
naturally inclined, like Elizabeth, William of Orange,
and Henry of Navarre, to make considerations of re-
ligion subordinate to considerations of State. Both
he and Navarre would have been glad to throw over
the fanatical or factious partisans by whom they were
160 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
surrounded, and rally the Politiques ^o their support.
But it was a step that neither as yet ventured openly
to take. The one was obliged to affect zeal for the
old religion, the other for the new.
Elizabeth's ministers, with short-sighted animosity,
had been urging her throughout her reign to give
vigorous support to the Huguenots. She herself took
a broader view of the situation. She preferred to
deal with the legitimate government of France recog-
nised by the vast majority of Frenchmen. Henry III.,
as she well knew, did not intend or desire to exter-
minate the Huguenots. If that turbulent faction had
been openly abetted in its arrogant claims by English
assistance, he would have been obliged to become the
mere instrument of Elizabeth's worst enemies, Guise
and the Holy League. France would have ceased to
be any counterpoise to Spain. The English Queen
had so skilfully played a most difficult and delicate
game that Henry of Navarre had been able to keep
his head above water ; Guise had upon the whole been
held in check; the royal authority, though impaired,
had still controlled the foreign policy of France, and
so, since 1572, had given England a firm and useful
ally. As long as this balanced situation could be
maintained, England was safe.
But the time was now at hand when this nice
equilibrium of forces would be disturbed by events
which neither Elizabeth nor any one else could help.
Alen9on, the last of the Valois line, was dying. When
he should be gone, the next heir to the French King
would be no other than the Huguenot Henry of
Bourbon, King of the tiny morsel of Navarre that lay
vm PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS : 1584-86 161
north of the Pyrenees. Henry in. wished to recognise
his right. But it was impossible that Guise or Philip,
or the French nation itself, should tolerate this pro-
spect. Thus the great war of religion which Elizabeth
had so carefully abstained from stirring up was now
inevitable. The French alliance, the key-stone of her
policy, was about to crumble away with the authority
of the French King which she had buttressed up. He
would be compelled either to become the mere instru-
ment of the Papal party or to combine openly with the
Huguenot leader. In either case, Guise, not Henry m.,
would be the virtual sovereign, and Elizabeth's alliance
would not be with France but with a French faction.
She would thus be forced into the position which she
had hitherto refused to accept that of sole protector
of French and Dutch Protestants, and open antagonist
of Spain. The more showy part she was now to play
has been the chief foundation of her glory with
posterity. It is a glory which she deserves. The
most industrious disparagement will never rob her of
it. But the sober student will be of opinion that her
reputation as a statesman has a more solid basis in
the skill and firmness with which during so many
years she staved off the necessity for decisive action.
Although the discovery of the Throgmorton plot
(Nov. 1583), and the consequent expulsion of the
Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, were not immediately
followed by open war between England and Spain,
yet the course of events thenceforward tended directly
to that issue. Elizabeth immediately proposed to the
Dutch States to form a naval alliance against Spain,
and to concert other measures for mutual defence.
L
162 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
Orange met the offer with alacrity, and pressed Eliza-
beth to accept the sovereignty of Holland, Zealand,
and Utrecht. Perhaps there was no former ruler of
England who would not have clutched at such an
opportunity of territorial aggrandisement. For Eliza-
beth it had no charms. Every sensible person now
will applaud the sobriety of her aims. But though'
she eschewed territory, she desired to have military
occupation of one or more coast fortresses, at all
events for a time, both as a security for the fidelity
of the Dutch to any engagements they might make
with her, and to enable her to treat on more equal
terms with France or Spain, if the Netherlands were
destined, after all, to fall into the hands of one of those
powers.
While these negotiations were in progress, William
of Orange was murdered (^S, 1584). Ale^on
had died a month earlier. The sovereignty of the
revolted Netherlands was thus vacant. Elizabeth
advised a joint protectorate by France and England.
But the Dutch had small confidence in protectorates,
especially of the joint kind. What they wanted was
a sovereign, and as Elizabeth would not accept them
as her subjects they offered themselves to Henry in.
But after nibbling at the offer for eight months Henry
was obliged to refuse it. His openly expressed inten-
.tion to recognise the King of Navarre as his heir had
caused a revival of the Holy League. During the
winter 1584-5 its reorganisation was busily going on.
Philip promised to subsidise it. Mendoza, now am-
bassador at Paris, was its life and soul. The insurrec-
tion was on the point of breaking out. Henry in.
vm PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS: 1584-86 163
knew that the vast majority of Frenchmen were
Catholics. To accept the Dutch offer would, he
feared, drive them all into the ranks of the Holy
League. He therefore dismissed the Dutch envoys
with the recommendation that they should apply to
England for protection (?'*?, 1585).
The manifesto of the Leaguers appeared at the end
of March (1585). Henry of Navarre was declared
incapable, as a Protestant, of succeeding to the crown.
Henry ill. was summoned to extirpate heresy. To
enforce these demands the Leaguers flew to arms all
over France. Had Henry ill. been a man of spirit
he would have placed himself at the head of the loyal
Catholics and fought it out. But by the compact of
Nemours he conceded all the demands of the League
(^g|8, 1585). Thus began the last great war of
religion, which lasted till Henry of Navarre was firmly
seated on the throne of France.
Elizabeth had now finally lost the French alliance,
the sheet-anchor of her policy since 1572, and she
prepared for the grand struggle which could no longer
be averted. As France failed her, she must make the
best of the Dutch alliance. She did not conceal from
herself that she would have to do her share of the
fighting. But she was determined that the Dutch
should also do theirs.* Deprived of all hope of help
from France they wished for annexation to the English
crown, because solidarity between the two countries
would give them an unlimited claim upon English
resources. Elizabeth uniformly told them, first and
last, that nothing should induce her to accept that
proposal. She would give them a definite amount of
164 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
assistance in men and money. But every farthing
would have to be repaid when the war was over ; and
in the meantime she must have Flushing and Brill as
security. They must also bind themselves to make
proper exertions in their own defence. Gilpin, her
agent in Zealand, had warned her that if she showed
herself too forward they would simply throw the
whole burden of the war upon her. Splendid as had
often been the resistance of separate towns when
besieged, there had been, from the first, lamentable
selfishness and apathy as to measures for combined
defence. The States had less than 6000 men in the
field half of them English volunteers at the very
time when they were assuring Elizabeth that, if she
would come to their assistance, they could and would
furnish 15,000. She was justified in regarding their
fine promises with much distrust.
While this discussion was going on, Antwerp was
lost. The blame of the delay, if blame there was,
must be divided equally between the bargainers. The
truth is that, cavil as they might about details, the
strength of the English contingent was not the real
object of concern to either of them. Each was think-
ing of something else. Though Elizabeth had so
peremptorily refused the sovereignty offered by the
United Provinces, they were still bent on forcing it
upon her. She, on the other hand, had not given
up the hope that her more decisive intervention
would drive Philip to make the concessions to his
revolted subjects which she had so often urged upon
him. In her eyes, Philip's sovereignty over them
was indefeasible. They were, perhaps, justified in
viii PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS : 1584-Sii 165
asserting their ancient constitutional rights. But if
those were guaranteed, continuance of the rebellion
would be criminal. Moreover, she held that elected
deputies were but amateur statesmen, and had better
leave the haute politigue to princes to settle. " Princes,"
she once told a Dutch deputation, "are not to be
charged with breach of faith if they sometimes listen
to both sides ; for they transact business in a princely
way and with a princely understanding such as pri-
vate persons cannot have." Her promise not to make
peace behind their backs was not to be interpreted
as literally as if it had been made to a brother prince.
It merely bound her so she contended not to make
peace without safeguarding their interests ; that is to
say, what she considered to be their true interests.
Conduct based on such a theory would not be toler-
ated now, and was not tamely acquiesced in by the
Dutch then. But to speak of it as base and treacher-
ous is an abuse of terms.
It would be impossible to follow' in detail the
peace negotiations which went on between Elizabeth and
Parma up to the very sailing of the Armada (1586-8).
The terms on which the Queen was prepared to make
peace never varied substantially from first to last.
We know very well what they were. She claimed for
the Protestants of the Netherlands (who were a
minority, perhaps, even in the rebel provinces) pre-
cisely the same degree of toleration which she allowed
to her own Catholics. They were not to be questioned
about their religion ; but there was to be no public
worship or proselytising. The old constitution, as
before Alva, was to be restored, which would have
166 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
involved the departure of the foreign troops. These
terms would not have satisfied the States, and if
Philip could have been induced to grant them, the
States and Elizabeth must have parted company.
But, as he would make no concessions, the Anglo-
Dutch alliance could, and did, continue. The caution-
ary towns she was determined never to give up to
any one unless (first) she was repaid her expenses
for which they had been mortgaged, and (secondly)
the struggle in the Netherlands was brought to an
end on terms which she approved. There was, there-
fore, never any danger of their being surrendered to
Philip, and they did, in fact, remain in Elizabeth's
hands till her death.
Elizabeth has been severely censured for selecting
Leicester to command the English army in the Nether-
lands. It is certain that he was marked out by public
opinion as the fittest person. The Queen's choice was
heartily approved by all her ministers, especially by
Walsingham, who kept up the most confidential re-
lations with Leicester, and backed him throughout.
Custom prescribed that an English army should be
commanded, not by a professional soldier, but by a
great nobleman. Among the nobility there Were a
few who had done a little soldiering in a rough way
in Scotland or Ireland, but no one who could be called
a professional general. The momentous step which
Elizabeth was taking would have lost half its signifi-
cance in the eyes of Europe if any less conspicuous
person than Leicester had been appointed. Moreover,
it was essential that the nobleman selected should be
able and willing to spend largely out of his own
<rm PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS : 1584-86 167
resources. By traditional usage, derived from feudal
times, peers who were employed on temporary ser-
vices not only received no salary, but were expected
to defray their own expenses, and defray them hand-
somely. Never did an English nobleman show more
public spirit in this respect than Leicester. He raised
every penny he could by mortgaging his estates. He
not only paid his own personal expenses, but advanced
large sums for military purposes, which his mistress
never thought of repaying him. If he effected little
as a general, it was because he was not provided with
the means. Serious mistakes he certainly made, but
they were not of a military kind.
Leicester was now fifty-four, bald, white-bearded,
and red-faced, but still imposing in figure, carriage,
and dress. To Elizabeth he was dear as the friend
of her youth, one who, she was persuaded, had loved
her for herself when they were both thirty years
younger, and was still her most devoted and trust-
worthy servant. Burghley she liked and trusted, and
all the more since he had become a more docile in-
strument of her policy. Walsingham, a keener intel-
lect and more independent character, she could not
but value, though impatient under his penetrating
suspicion and almost constant disapproval. Leicester
was the intimate friend, the frequent companion of
her leisure hours. None of her younger favourites
had supplanted him in her regard. By long intimacy
he knew the molles aditus et tempora when things might
be said without offence which were not acceptable at
the council-board. The other ministers were glad to
use him for this purpose. There can be no question
168 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
that his appointment to the command in the Nether-
lands was meant as the most decisive indication that
could be given of Elizabeth's determination to face
open war with Philip rather than allow him to estab-
lish absolute government in that country.
Since the deaths of Alen9on and William of Orange,
the United Provinces had been without a ruler. The
government had been provisionally carried on by the
"States," or deputies from each province. Leicester
had come with no other title than that of Lieutenant-
General of the Queen's troops. But what the States
wanted was not so much a military leader as a
sovereign ruler. They therefore urged Leicester to
accept the powers and title of Governor-General, the
office which had been held by the representatives of
Philip. From this it would follow, both logically and
practically, that Elizabeth herself stood in the place
of Philip in other words, that she was committed
to the sovereignty which .she had so peremptorily
refused.
The offer was accepted by Leicester almost imme-
diately after his arrival (Jan. |4> 1586). There can
be little doubt that it was a preconcerted plan be-
tween the States and Elizabeth's ministers, who had
all along supported the Dutch proposals. Leicester,
we know, had contemplated it before leaving England.
Davison, who was in Holland, hurried it on, and
undertook to carry the news to Elizabeth. Burghley
and Walsingham maintained that the step had been
absolutely necessary, and implored her not to undo it.
Elizabeth herself had suspected that something of the
sort would be attempted, and had strictly enjoined
vin PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS: J 584-86 169
Leicester at his departure to accept no such title. It
was not that she wished his powers that is to say, her
own powers to be circumscribed. On the contrary,
she desired that they should in practice be as large
and absolute as possible. What she objected to was
the title, with, all the consequences it involved. And
what enraged her most of all was the attempt of her
servants to push the thing through behind her back,
on the calculation that she would be obliged to accept
the accomplished fact. Her wrath vented itself on
all concerned, on her ministers, on the States, and on
Leicester. To the latter she addressed a characteristic
letter :
"To my Lord of Leicester from the Queen by Sir Thomas Heneage.
" How contemptuously we conceive ourself to have been used
by you, you shall by this bearer understand, whom we have
expressly sent unto you to charge you withal. We could
never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out in experience,
that a man raised up by ourself and extraordinarily favoured
by us above any other subject of this land, would have in so
contemptible [contemptuous] a sort, broken our commandment,
in a cause that so greatly toucheth us in honour ; whereof
although you have showed yourself to make but little account,
in most undutiful a sort, you may not therefore think that we
have so little care of the reparation thereof as we mind to pass
so great a wrong in silence unredressed. And therefore our
express pleasure and command is that, all delays and excuses
laid apart, you do presently, on the duty of your allegiance,
obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you to
do in our name. Whereof fail not, as you will answer the
contrary at your uttermost peril. "
Nor were these cutting reproaches reserved for his
private perusal. She severely rebuked the States for
encouraging " a creature of her own " to disobey her in-
junctions, and, as a reparation from them and from him,
170 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
she required that he should make a public resignation
of the government in the place where he had accepted
it.
It is not to be wondered at that Elizabeth should
think the vindication of her outraged authority to
be the most pressing requirement of the moment.
But the result was unfortunate for the object of the
expedition. The States had conferred "absolute"
authority upon Leicester, and would have thought it a
cheap price to pay if, by their adroit manoeuvre, they
had succeeded in forcing the Queen's hand. But they
did not care to intrust absolute powers to a mere
general of an English contingent. After long discus-
sion, Elizabeth was at length persuaded that the least
of evils was to allow him to retain the title which the
States had conferred on him (June 1586). But in the
meantime they had repented of their haste in letting
power go out of their own hands. Their efforts were
thenceforth directed to explain away the term "absolute."
The long displeasure of the Queen had destroyed the
principal value of Leicester in their eyes. He himself
had soon incurred their dislike. Impetuous and domi-
neering, he could not endure opposition. Every man
who did not fall in with his plans was a malicious
enemy, a traitor, a tool of Parma, who ought to be
hanged. He still enjoyed the favour of the democratic
and bigoted Calvinist party, especially in Utrecht, and
he tried to play them ok against the States, thereby
promoting the rise of the factions which long after-
wards distracted the United Provinces. The displeasure
of the Queen had taken the shape of not sending him
money, and his troops were in great distress and un-
nil PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS : 1584-86 171
able to move. Moreover, rumours of the secret peace
negotiations were craftily spread by Parma, who, know-
ing well that they would come to nothing, turned
them to the best account by leading the States to
suspect that they were being betrayed to Spain.
Elizabeth had sent her army abroad more as a
warning to Philip than with a view to active operations.
It was no part of her plan to recover any of the
territory already conquered by Parma, even if it had
lain in her power. She knew that the majority of its
inhabitants were Catholics and royalists. She knew
also that Parma's attenuated army was considerably
outnumbered by the Anglo-Dutch forces, and that he
was in dire distress for food and money. The recovered
provinces were completely ruined by the war. Their
commerce was swept from the sea. The mouths of
their great rivers were blockaded. The Protestants of
Flanders and Brabant had largely migrated to the
unsubdued provinces, whose prosperity, notwithstand-
ing the burdens of war, was advancing by leaps and
bounds. Their population was about two millions.
That of England itself was little more than four.
Religion was no longer the only or the chief motive of
their resistance. For even the Catholics among them,
who were still very numerous some said a majority
keenly relished the material prosperity which had
grown with independence. Encouraged by English
protection, the States were in no humour to listen to
compromise. But a compromise was what Elizabeth
desired. She was therefore not unwilling that her
forces should be confined to an attitude of observation,
till it should appear whether her open intervention
172 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
would extract from Philip such concessions as she
deemed reasonable.
Leicester was eager to get to work, and he was
warmly supported by Walsingham. Burghley's conduct
was less straightforward. He had long found it
advisable to cultivate amicable relations with the
favourite. He had probably concurred in the plan for
making him Governor-General. Even now he was pro-
fessing to take his part. In reality he was not sorry
to see him under a cloud ; and though he sympathised
as much as ever with the Dutch, he cared more for
crippling his rival. Hence his activity in those obscure
peace negotiations which he so carefully concealed from
Leicester and Walsingham. To keep Walsingham long
in the dark, on that or any other subject, was indeed
impossible. It was found necessary at last to let him
be present at an interview with the agents employed
by Burghley and Parma, which brought their back-
stairs diplomacy to an abrupt conclusion. " They that
have been the employers of them," he wrote to
Leicester, "are ashamed of the matter." The nego-
tiations went on through other channels, but never
made any serious progress.
To compel Philip to listen to a compromise, without
at the same time emboldening the Dutch to turn a deaf
ear to it such was the problem which Elizabeth had
set herself. She therefore preferred to apply pressure
in other quarters. Towards the end of 1585, Drake
appeared on the coast of Spain itself, and plundered
Vigo. Then crossing the Atlantic, he sacked and burned
St. Domingo and Carthagena. Again in 1587, he
forced his way into Cadiz harbour, burnt all the ship-
vm PROTECTORATE OF NETHERLANDS : 1584-86 173
ping and the stores collected for the Armada, and
for two months plundered and destroyed every vessel
he met off the coast of Portugal.
Philip had so long and so tamely submitted to the
many injuries and indignities which Elizabeth heaped
upon him, that it is not wonderful if she had come to
think that he would never pluck up courage to retaliate.
This time she was wrong. The conquest of England
had always had its place in his overloaded programme.
But it was to be in that hazy ever-receding future,
when he should have put down the Dutch rebellion
and neutralised France. Elizabeth's open intervention
in the Netherlands at length induced him to change
his plan. England, he now decided, must be first
dealt with.
In the meantime, Parma's operations in the Nether-
lands were starved quite as much as Leicester's. Plun-
dering excursions, two or three petty combats not de-
serving the name of battles, half-a-dozen small towns
captured on one side or the other such is the mili-
tary record from the date of Elizabeth's intervention to
the arrival of the Armada. Parma had somewhat the
best of this work, such as it was. But the war in the
Netherlands was practically stagnant.
At the end of the first year of Leicester's govern-
ment, events of the highest importance obliged him to
pay a visit to England (Nov. 1586). The Queen of
Scots had been found guilty of conspiring to assassinate
Elizabeth, and Parliament had been summoned to
decide upon her fate.
CHAPTER IX
EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN OF SCOTS: 1584-1587
THROGMORTON'S plot of which the Queen of Scots was
undoubtedly cognisant, though it was not pressed against
her brought home to every one the danger in which
Elizabeth stood (1584). To the Catholic conspiracy,
the temptation to take her life was enormous. It was
becoming clear that, while she lived, the much talked
of insurrection would never come off. The large ma-
jority of Catholics would have nothing to do with it
still less with foreign invasion. They would obey
their lawful sovereign. But if once Elizabeth were
dead, by whatever means, their lawful sovereign would
be Mary. The rebels would be the Protestants, if they
should try to place any one else on the throne. The
Protestants had no organisation. They had no can-
didate for the crown ready. It was to be feared that
no great noble would step forward to lead them.
Burghley himself, though longing as much as ever for
Mary's head, had with a prudent eye to all eventualities,
contrived some time before to persuade her that he
was her well-wisher. Houses of Commons, it is true,
had shown themselves strongly and increasingly Pro-
174
CH. ix EXECUTION OF MARY : 1584-1587 175
testant. But with the demise of the crown, Parliament,
if in being at the time, would be ipso facto dissolved.
The Privy Council, in like manner, would cease to have
any legal existence. Burghley, Walsingham, and the
other new men of whom it was mostly composed, had
no power or weight, except as instruments of the
sovereign. Her death would leave them helpless.
The country would take its direction not from them,
but from the great nobles of large ancestral possessions.
Nor could they provide for such an emergency by
privately selecting a Protestant successor beforehand,
and privately organising their partisans. It would have
been as much as their lives were worth if their mis-
tress had caught them doing anything of the kind.
In this dilemma an ingenious plan suggested itself
to them. They drew up a " Bond of Association," by
which the subscribers engaged that, if the Queen were
murdered, they would never accept as successor any one
" by whom or for whom " such act should be committed,
but would " prosecute such person to death."
This was a hypothetical way of excluding Mary and
organising a Protestant resistance to which Elizabeth
could make no objection. But the ministers knew
that, as a merely voluntary association without Par-
liamentary sanction, it would add little strength or
confidence to the Protestant party. It would not even
test their numbers; for no Marian ventured to refuse
the oath. Mary herself desired to be allowed to take
it. The bond was therefore converted into a Statute
by Parliament, though not without some important
alterations (March 1585). It was enacted that if the
realm was invaded, or a rebellion instigated, by or for
176 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
any one pretending a title to the succession, or if the
Queen's murder was plotted by any one, or with the
privity of any one that pretended title, such pretender,
after examination and judgment by an extraordinary
commission to be nominated by the Queen, and con-
sisting of at least twenty-four privy councillors and
lords of Parliament assisted by the chief judges, should
be excluded from the succession, and that, on pro-
clamation of the sentence and direction by the Queen,
all subjects might and should pursue the offender to
death. If the Queen were murdered, 1;he lords of the
Council at the time of her death, or the majority of
them, should join to themselves at least twelve other
lords of Parliament not making title to the crown,
and the chief judges ; and if, after examination, they
should come to the above-mentioned conclusion, they
should without delay, by all forcible and possible
means, prosecute the guilty persons to death, and
should have power to raise and use such forces as
should in that behalf be needful and convenient ; and
no subjects should be liable to punishment for any-
thing done aecording to the tenor of the Statute.
Here, then, was a legal way provided by which the
Protestant ministers might act against Mary if Eliza-
beth were murdered. They were in fact created a
Provisional Government, with power to exclude Mary
from the throne. Whether they would have the
courage or strength to do so remained to be seen;
but they would at least have formal law on their side.
It had never entered into Mary's plans to wait for
Elizabeth's natural death. She therefore read the new
Act as a sentence of exclusion. Another blow soon
ix EXECUTION OF MARY : 1584-1587 177
fell on her. In 1584, elated by her son's victory over
the raiders of Ruthven, and believing that he was
willing to recognise her joint sovereignty and co-
operate with a Guise invasion, she had scornfully
refused the last overtures that Elizabeth ever made to
her. She now learnt that he had never intended to
accept association with her, and that he had urged
Elizabeth not to release her. In the following year he
had accepted an annual pension of 4000 with some
grumbling at its amount ; and a defensive alliance was
at length concluded between the two countries, Mary's
name not being mentioned in the treaty (July 1586).
As the prospects of the Scottish Queen became
darker both in England and her own country, she
grew more desperate and reckless. Early in 1586,
Walsingham contrived a way of regularly inspecting
all her most secret correspondence. He soon dis-
covered that she was encouraging Babington's plot
for assassinating Elizabeth. Some of the conspirators,
though avowed Catholics, had offices in the royal
household ; such was Elizabeth's easy-going confidence.
It was hoped that Parma would at the moment of the
murder land troops on the east coast. Mendoza, now
Spanish ambassador in Paris, warmly encouraged the
project.
The Scottish Queen was now in the case contem-
plated by the Statute of the previous year. But it
required all the urgency of the Council to prevail
with Elizabeth to have her brought to trial. Eliza-
beth's whole conduct shows that she would even now
have preferred to deal with her rival as she did in
the inquiry into the Darnley murder. She would
M
178 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
have been content to discredit her, to expose her
guilt, and, if possible, to bring her to her knees con-
fessing her crimes and pleading for mercy. But
Mary was not of the temper to confess. Humiliation
and effacement were to her worse than death. She
chose to brazen it out with a well-grounded con.
fidence that, as long as she asserted her innocence,
people would always be found to believe in it, let
the evidence be what it would. Besides, long im-
punity had convinced her that Elizabeth did not
dare to take her life.
There was nothing for it, therefore, but to bring
her to trial. A Special Commission was nominated
under the provisions of the Statute of 1585, con-
sisting of forty-five persons peers, privy councillors,
and judges who proceeded to Fotheringay Castle,
whither Mary had been removed. 1 She at first re-
fused their jurisdiction; but on being informed that
they would proceed in her absence, she appeared be-
fore them under protest (October 14, 1586). After
sitting at Fotheringay for two days, the Court ad-
journed to Westminster, where it pronounced her
guilty (October 25). 2 A declaration was added that
her disqualification for the succession, which followed
by the Statute, did not affect any rights that her son
might possess. The verdict was immediately known ;
but its proclamation was deferred till Parliament could
be consulted.
1 Some persons whose names do not appear in the Commission
sat on the trial, while some who were appointed did not sit.
2 Those who wish to know the grounds on which Mary's com-
plicity in Babington's plot has been denied can consult Lingard,
Tytlev, and Labanoff. In my opinion, their arguments are very feeble.
ix EXECUTION OF MARY : 1584-1587 179
A general election had been held while the trial
was going on, and Parliament met four days after
its conclusion (October 29). The whole evidence was
gone into afresh. Not a word seems to have been
said in Mary's favour ; and an address was presented
to the Queen praying for execution. If precedents
were wanted for the capital punishment of an anointed
sovereign, there were the cases of Agag, Jezebel, Atha-
liah, Deiotarus, king of Galatia, put to death by Julius
Csesar, Rhescuporis, king of Thrace, by Tiberius, and
Conradin by Charles of Anjou. In vain did Eliza-
beth request them to reconsider their vote, and de-
vise some other expedient. Usually so deferential
to her suggestions, they reiterated their declaration
that " the Queen's safety could no way be secured as
long as the Queen of Scots lived."
Elizabeth's hesitation has been generally set down
to hypocrisy. It has been taken for granted that
she desired Mary's death, and was glad to have it
pressed upon her by her subjects. I believe that her
reluctance was most genuine. If not of generous
disposition, neither was she revengeful or cruel. She
had no animosity against her enemies. She lacked
gall. She was never in any hurry to punish the
disaffected, or even to weed them out of her service.
She rather prided herself on employing them even
about her person. Since her accession only two
English peers had been put to death, though several
had richly deserved it. She could affirm with perfect
truth that, for the last fifteen years, she, and she
alone, had stood between Mary and the scaffold, and
this at great and increasing risk to her own life.
180 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP,
There had, perhaps, been a time when to destroy the
prospect of a Catholic succession would have driven
the Catholics into rebellion. But that time had long
gone by, as every one knew. Elizabeth had only
two dangers now to fear, invasion and assassination,
the latter being the most threatening. There would
be little inducement to attempt it if Mary were not
alive to profit by it. Yet Elizabeth hesitated. The
explanation of her reluctance is very simple. She
flinched from the obloquy, the undeserved obloquy,
which she saw was in store for her. Careless to an
extraordinary degree about her personal danger, she
would have preferred, as far as she was herself con-
cerned, to let Mary live. It was her ministers and
the Protestant party who, for their own interest, were
forcing her to shed her cousin's blood ; and it seemed
to her unfair that the undivided odium should fall,
as she foresaw it would fall, on her alone.
The suspense continued through December and
January. In the meantime it became abundantly
clear that no foreign court would interfere actively to
save Mary's life. While she had been growing old in
captivity, new interests had sprung up, fresh schemes
had been formed in which she had no place. She
stood in the way of half-a-dozen ambitions. Every-
body was weary of her and her wrongs and her
pretensions. The Pope had felt less interest of late
in a princess whose rights, if established, would pass
to a Protestant heir. Philip could not intercede
for her even if he had desired to save her life.
He was already at war with England, and, if she had
known it, not with any intention of supporting her
IX EXECUTION OF MARY: 1584-1587 181
claims. 1 James by his recent treaty with England had
tacitly treated his mother as an enemy. Her scheme
for kidnapping and disinheriting him, found among her
papers at Chartley, had been promptly communicated
to him. Decency required that he should make a
show of remonstrance and menace. But he had every
reason to desire her death, and his only thought was
to use the opportunity for extorting from Elizabeth
a recognition of his title to the English crown and
an increase of his pension. He sent the Master of
Gray to drive this bargain. The very choice of his
envoy, the man who had persuaded him to break
with his mother, showed Elizabeth how the land lay,
and she did not think it worth her while to bribe
him in either way. The Marian nobles blustered and
called for war. Not one of them wanted to see Mary
back in Scotland or cared what became of her; but
they had got an idea that Philip would pay them
for a plundering raid into England, and the doubly
lucrative prospect was irresistible. James, however,
though pretending resentment and really sulky at his
rebuff, knew his own interests too well to quarrel with
England. What the action of the French King was is
less certain. Openly he remonstrated with consider-
able vigour and persistence ; not entering into the
question of Mary's guilt, but protesting against the
punishment of a Queen and a member of his family.
Probably his efforts, so far as they went, were sincere,
for he instructed his ambassador to bribe the English
ministers if possible to save her life. But it was
evident that, however offended Henry in. might be
1 There was no formal proclamation of war on either side.
182 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP
by the execution of his sister-in-law, he would not be
provoked into playing the game of Spain.
A warrant for the execution had been drawn soon
after the adjournment of Parliament, and all through
December and January Elizabeth's ministers kept
urging her to sign it. At length, when the Scotch
and French ambassadors were gone, and with them
the last excuse for delay, she signed it in the presence
of Davison (who had lately been made co-secretary
with Walsingham), and directed him to have it sealed
(February 1). What else passed between them on
that occasion must always remain uncertain, because
Davison's four written statements, and his answers at
his trial, differ in important particulars not only from
the Queen's account but from one another. So much,
however, will to most persons who examine the
evidence be very clear. Elizabeth meant the execution
to take place. There is no reason to doubt Davison's
statement that she "forbade him to trouble her any
further, or let her hear any more thereof till it was
done, seeing that for her part she had now performed
all that either in law or reason could be required of
her." But signing the warrant, as both of them knew,
was not enough. The formal delivery of it to some
person, with direction to carry it out, was the final
step necessary. This, by Davison's own admission, the
Queen managed to evade. He saw that she wished to
thrust the responsibility upon him and Walsingham,
and he suspected that she meant to disavow them.
Although, therefore, she had enjoined strict secrecy,
he laid the matter before Hatton and Burghley.
Burghley assembled in his own room the Earls of
IX EXECUTION OF MARY : 1584-1587 183
Derby and Leicester, Lords Howard of Effingham,
Hunsdon, and Cobham, Knollys, Hatton, Walsingham.
and Davison (February 3). These ten were probably
the only privy councillors then at Greenwich. 1 He laid
before them Davison's statement of what had passed
between the Queen and himself at both interviews.
He said that she had done as much as could be ex-
pected of her ; that she evidently wished her ministers to
take whatever responsibility remained upon themselves
without informing her; and that they ought to do so.
His proposal was agreed to. A letter was written to
the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury instructing them
to carry out the execution. This letter all the ten
signed, and it was at once despatched along with the
warrant. They quite understood that Elizabeth would
disavow them. They saw that she wished to have a
pretext for saying that Mary had been put to death
without her knowledge, and before she had finally
made up her mind. They were willing to furnish her
with this pretext. Of course there would be more or
less of a storm to keep up the make-believe. But ten
privy councillors acting together could not well be
punished.
On Thursday (February 9) the news of the execution
arrived. Elizabeth now learnt for the first time that
the responsibility which she had intended to fix on the
two secretaries, one a nobody and the other no favourite,
had been shared by eight others of the Council, includ-
1 The remaining Privy Councillors were Archbishop Whitgift,
Lord Chancellor Bromley, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Warwick,
Lord Buckhurst, Sir James Crofts, Sir Kalph Sadler, Sir Walter
Mildmay, Sir Amyas Paulet, and the Latin Secretary, Wolley.
184 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
ing all its most important members. Storm at them
she might and did, and all the more furiously because
they had combined for self-protection. But to punish
the whole ten was out of the question. Yet if no one
were punished, with what face could she tender her
improbable explanation to foreign courts'? The un-
lucky Davison was singled out. He could be charged
with divulging what he had been ordered to keep
secret and misleading the others. He was tried be-
fore a Special Commission, fined 10,000 marks, and
imprisoned for some time in the Tower. The fine
was rigidly exacted, and it reduced him to poverty.
Burghley, whose tool he had been almost as much as
Elizabeth's, took pains to make his disgrace perman-
ent, because he wanted the secretaryship for his son,
Robert Cecil.
The strange thing is, that Elizabeth not only ex-
pected her transparent falsehoods to be formally ac-
cepted as satisfactory, but hoped that they would be
really believed. Her letter to James was an insult to
his understanding. " I would you knew (though not
felt) the extreme dolour that overwhelms my mind,
for that miserable accident which (far contrary to my
meaning) hath befallen. ... I beseech you that
as God and many more know how innocent I am in
this case, so you will believe me that if I had bid
[bidden] ought I would have bid [abided] by it. ...
Thus assuring yourself of me that as I know this [the
execution] was deserved, yet if I had meant it I would
never lay it on others' shoulders, no more will I not
damnify myself that thought it not."
Little as James cared what became of his mother.
ix EXECUTION OF MARY : 1584-1587 185
it was impossible that he should not feel humiliated
when he was expected to swallow such a pill as this
and ungilded too. He had no intention of going to
war with the country of which he might now at
any moment become the legitimate King. But to let
Elizabeth see that unless he was paid he could be
disagreeable, he winked at raids across the border and
coquetted with the faction who were inviting Philip
to send a Spanish army to Scotland. It was but a
passing display of temper. The end of the year
(1587) saw him again drawing close to Elizabeth, and
she was able to give her undivided attention to the
coming Armada.
It cannot be seriously maintained that because Mary
was not an English subject she could not be lawfully
tried and punished for crimes committed in England.
Those, if any there now be, who adopt her own con-
tention that, being an anointed Queen, she was not
amenable to any earthly tribunal, but to God alone,
are beyond the reach of earthly argument. The
English government had a right to detain her as a
dangerous public enemy. She, on the other hand, had
a right to resist such restraint if she could, and she
might have carried conspiracy very far without in-
curring our blame. But for good reasons we draw a
line at conspiracy to murder. No government ever
did or will let it pass unpunished. If Napoleon at
St. Helena had engaged in conspiracies for seizing the
island, no one could have blamed him, even though
they might have involved bloodshed. But if he had
been convicted of plotting the assassination of Sir Hud-
son Lowe, he would assuredly have been hanged.
186 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
That the execution was a wise and opportune stroke
of policy can hardly be disputed. It broke up the
Catholic party in England at the moment when their
disaffection was about to be tempted by the appearance
of the Armada. There had been a time when they
had hopes of James. But he was now known to be a
stiff Protestant. Only the small Jesuitical faction
was prepared to accept Philip either as an heir of
John of Gaunt or as Mary's legatee. There was no
other Catholic with a shadow of a claim. The bulk of
the party therefore ceased to look forward to a restora-
tion of the old religion, and rallied to the cause of
national independence.
NOTE ON PAULET S ALLEGED REFUSAL TO MURDER MARY.
I have not alluded in the text to the story, generally repeated
by historians, that Elizabeth urged Paulet and Drury to
murder Mary privately. There is no doubt that, after the
signature of the warrant, Walsingham and Davison, by Eliza-
beth's direction, urged Paulet and Drury to put Mary to death,
and that they refused. But was it a private murder that was
meant or a public execution without delivery of the warrant ?
There is nothing in any of Davison 's statements inconsistent
with the latter and far more probable explanation. The
blacker charge is founded solely on the two letters which are
generally accepted as being those which passed between the
secretaries and Paulet, but which may be confidently set down
as impudent forgeries. They were first given to the world in
1722 by Dr. George Mackenzie, a violent Marian, who says
that a copy of them was sent him by Mr. Urry of Christ
Church, Oxford, and that they had been found among Paulet's
papers. Two years later they were printed by Hearne, an
Oxford Jacobite and Nonjuror, who says he got them from a
copy furnished him by a friend unnamed (Urry ?), who told
him he had copied them in 1717 from a MS. letter-book of
rr EXECUTION OF MARY : 1584-1587 187
Pallet's. There is also a MS. copy in the Harleian collection,
which contains erasures and emendations an extraordinary
thing in a copy. It is said to be in the handwriting of the
Earl of Oxford himself. There is nothing to show whence he
copied it.
No one has ever seen the originals of these letters. Neither
has any one, except Hearne's unnamed friend, seen the " letter-
book " into which Paulet is supposed to have copied them.
Where had this " letter-book " been before 1717? Where was
it in 1717 ? What became of it after 1717 ? To none of these
questions is there any answer. The most rational conclusion
is that the " letter-book " never existed, and that the letters
were fabricated in the reign of George i. by some Oxford
Jacobite, who thought it easier and more prudent to circulate
copies than to attempt an imitation of Paulet's well-known
handwriting, with all the other difficulties involved in forging
a manuscript.
But it may be said, Do not the letters fit in with Davison's
narrative ? Of course they do. It was for the very purpose
of putting an odious meaning on that narrative that they were
fabricated. It was known that letters about putting Mary to
death had passed. The real letters had never been seen, and
had doubtless been destroyed. Here therefore was a fine
opportunity for manufacturing spurious ones.
CHAPTER X
WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603
ELIZABETH is not seen at her best in war. She did
not easily resign herself to its sacrifices. It frightened
her to see the money which she had painfully put
together, pound by pound, during so many years, by
many a small economy, draining out at the rate of
17,000 a month into the bottomless pit of military
expenditure. When Leicester came back she simply
stopped all remittances to the Netherlands, making
sure that if she did not feed her soldiers some one
else would have to do it. She saw that Parma was
not pressing forward. And though rumours of the
enormous preparations in Spain, which accounted for
his inactivity, continued to pour in, she still hoped
that her intervention in the Netherlands was bending
Philip to concessions. All this time Parma was
steadily carrying out his master's plans for the invasion.
His little army was to be trebled in the autumn by
reinforcements principally from Italy. In the mean-
time he was collecting a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats.
As soon as the Armada should appear they were to
make the passage under its protection.
It would answer no useful purpose, even if my limits
permitted it, to enter into the particulars of Elizabeth's
CH. x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 189
policy towards the United Provinces during the twelve
months that preceded the appearance of the Armada.
Her proceedings were often tortuous, and by setting
them forth in minute detail her detractors have not
found it difficult to represent them as treacherous.
But, living three centuries later, what have we to con-
sider but the general scope and drift of her policy?
Looking at it as a whole we shall find that, whether
we approve of it or not, it was simple, consistent, and
undisguised. She had no intention of abandoning the
Provinces to Philip, still less* of betraying them. But
she did wish them to return to their allegiance, if she
could procure for them proper guarantees for such
liberties as they had been satisfied with before Philip's
tyranny began. If Philip had been wise he would
have made those concessions. Elizabeth is not to be
over-much blamed if she clung too long to the belief
that he could be persuaded or compelled to do what
was so much for his own interest. If she was deceived
so was Burghley. Walsingham is entitled to the
credit of having from first to last refused to believe
that the negotiations were anything but a blind.
Though Elizabeth desired peace, she did not cease
to deal blows at Philip. In the spring of 1587 (April-
June), while she was most earnestly pushing her
negotiations with Parma, she despatched Drake on a
new expedition to the Spanish coast. He forced his
way into the harbours of Cadiz and Corunna, destroyed
many ships and immense stores, and came back loaded
with plunder. The Armada had not been crippled,
for most of the ships that were to compose it were
lying in the Tagus. But the concentration had been
190 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
delayed. Fresh stores had to be collected. Drake
calculated, and as it proved rightly, that another
season at least would be consumed in repairing the
loss, and that England, for that summer and autumn,
could rest secure of invasion.
The delay was most unwelcome to Philip. The
expense of keeping such a fleet and army on foot
through the winter would be enormous. Spain was
maintaining not only the Armada but the army of
Parma ; for the resources of the Netherlands, which
had been the true El Dorado of the Spanish monarchy,
were completely dried up. So impatient was Philip
usually the slowest of men that he proposed to
despatch the Armada even in September, and actually
wrote to Parma that he might expect it at any moment.
But, as Drake had calculated, September was gone
before everything was ready. The naval experts pro-
tested against the rashness of facing the autumnal
gales, with no friendly harbour on either side of the
Channel in which to take refuge. Philip then made
the absurd suggestion that the army from the Nether-
lands should cross by itself in its flat-bottomed boats.
But Parma told him that it was absolutely out of the
question. Four English ships could sink the whole
flotilla. In the meantime his soldiers, waiting on the
Dunkirk Downs and exposed to the severities of the
weather, were dying off like flies. Philip and Elizabeth
resembled one another in this, that neither of them
had any personal experience of war either by land or
sea. For a Queen this was natural. For a King it
was unnatural, and for an ambitious King unprece-
dented. They did not understand the proper adap
x WAR WITH SPAIN: 1587-1603 191
tation of means to ends. Yet it was necessary to
obtain their sanction before anything could be done.
Hence there was much mismanagement on both sides.
Still England was in no real danger during the
summer and autumn of 1587, because Philip's prepara-
tions were not completed ; and before the end of the
year the English fleet was lying in the Channel. But
the Queen grudged the expense of keeping the crews
up to their full complement. The supply of provisions
and ammunition was also very inadequate. The ex-
pensiveness of war is generally a sufficient reason for
not going to war ; but to attempt to do war cheaply
is always unwise. " Sparing and war," as Effingham
observed, " have no affinity together."
Drake strongly urged that, instead of trying to
guard the Channel, the English fleet should make for
the coast of Spain, and boldly assail the Armada as
soon as it put to sea. This was the advice of a man
who had all the shining qualities of Nelson, and seems
to have been in no respect his inferior. It' was no
counsel of desperation. He was confident of success.
Lord Howard of Effingham, the Admiral, was of the
same opinion. The negotiations were odious to him.
For Burghley, who clings to them, he has no more
reverence than Hamlet had for Polonius. "Since
England was England," he writes to Walsingham,
"there was never such a stratagem and mask to
deceive her as this treaty of peace. I pray God that
we do not curse for this a long grey beard with a
white head witless, that will make all the world think
us heartless. You know whom I mean."
With the hopes and fears of these sea-heroes, it is
192 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
instructive to compare the forecast of the great soldier
who was to conduct the invasion. Always obedient
and devoted to his sovereign, Parma played his part
in the deceptive negotiations with consummate skill.
But his own opinion was that it would be wise to
negotiate in good faith and accept the English terms.
Though prepared to undertake the invasion, he took
a very serious view of the risks to be encountered.
He tells Philip that the English preparations are
formidable both by laud and sea. Even if the passage
should be safely accomplished, disembarkation would
be difficult. His army, reduced by the hardships of
the winter from 30,000 men, which he had estimated
as the proper number, to less than 17,000, was dan-
gerously small for the work expected of it. He would
have to fight battle after battle, and the further he
advanced the weaker would bis army become both
from losses and from the necessity of protecting his
communications.
Parma had carefully informed himself of the pre-
parations in England. From the beginning of Eliza-
beth's reign, attention had been paid to the organisa-
tion, training, and equipment of the militia, and
especially since the relations with Spain had become
more hostile. On paper it seems to have amounted
to 117,000 men. Mobilisation was a local business.
Sir John Norris drew up the plan of defence. Beacon
fires did the work of the telegraph. Every man
knew whither he was to repair when their blaze
should be seen. The districts to be abandoned, the
positions to be defended, the bridges to be broken,
were all marked out. Three armies, calculated to.
X WAR WITH SPAIN: 1587-1603 193
amount in the aggregate to 73,000 men, were ordered
to assemble in July. Whether so many were actually
mustered is doubtful. But Parma would certainly
have found himself confronted by forces vastly superior
in numbers to his own, and would have had, as he
said, to fight battle after battle. The bow had not
been entirely abandoned, but the greater part of the
archers two-thirds in some counties had lately been
armed with calivers. What was wanting in discipline
would have been to some extent made up by the
spontaneous cohesion of a force organised under its
natural leaders, the nobles and gentry of each locality,
not a few of whom had seen service abroad. But,
after all, the greatest element of strength was the free
spirit of the people. England was, and had long
been, a nation of freemen. There were a few peers,
and a great many knights and gentlemen. But there
was no noble caste, as on the Continent, separated by
an impassable barrier of birth and privilege from the
mass of the people. All felt themselves fellow-country-
men bound together by common sentiments, common
interests, and mutual respect.
This spirit of freedom one might almost say of
equality made itself felt still more in the navy, and
goes far to account for the cheerful energy and dash
with which every service was performed. " The
English officers lived on terms of sympathy with their
men unknown to the Spaniards, who raised between
the commander and the commanded absurd barriers
of rank and blood which forbade to his pride any
labour but that of fighting. Drake touched the true
mainspring of English success when he once (in his
N
194 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
voyage round the world) indignantly rebuked some
coxcomb gentlemen- ad venturers with, ' I should like
to see the gentleman that will refuse to set his hand
to a rope. I must have the gentlemen to hale and
draw with the mariners.' " l Drake, Hawkins, Fro-
bisher were all born of humble parents. They rose
by their own valour and capacity. They had gentle-
men of birth serving under them. To Howard and
Cumberland and Seymour they were brothers-in-arms.
The master of every little trading vessel was fired by
their example, and hoped to climb as high.
It is the pleasure of some writers to speak of
Elizabeth's naval preparations as disgracefully insuf-
ficient, and to treat the triumphant result as a sort
of miracle. To their apprehension, indeed, her whole
reign is one long interference by Providence with the
ordinary relations of cause and effect. The number
of royal ships as compared with those of private
owners in the fleet which met the great Armada
34 to 161 is represented as discreditably small.
By Englishmen of that day, it was considered to be
creditably large. Sir Edward Coke (who was thirty-
eight at the time of the Armada), writing under
Charles I., when the royal navy was much larger,
says : " In the reign of Queen Elizabeth (I being then
acquainted with this business) there were thirty-three
[royal ships] besides pinnaces, which so guarded and
regarded the navigation of the merchants, as they
had safe vent for their commodities, and trade and
traffic flourished." 2
It seems to be overlooked that the royal navy,
1 Kingsley, Westward Ho. 2 Institutes, Fourth Part, Chap. I.
x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 195
such as it was, was almost the creation of Elizabeth.
Her father was the first English king who made any
attempt to keep a standing navy of his own. He
established the Admiralty and the first royal dock-
yard. Under Edward and Mary the navy, like
everything else, went to ruin. Elizabeth's ship-build-
ing, humble as it seems to us, excited the admiration
of her subjects, and was regarded as one of the chief
advances of her reign. The ships, when not in com-
mission, were kept in the Medway. The Queen
personally paid the greatest attention to them. They
were always kept in excellent condition, and could
be fitted out for sea at very short notice. Economy
was enforced in this, as in other departments, but
not at the expense of efficiency. The wages of officers
and men were very much augmented; but in the
short periods for which crews were enlisted, and in
the victualling, there seems to have been unwise parsi-
mony in 1588. The grumbling of alarmists about
unpreparedness, apathy, stinginess, and red-tape was
precisely what it is in our own day. We know that
some allowance is to be made for it.
The movements of the Armada were perfectly well
known in England, and all the dispositions to meet
it at sea were completed in a leisurely manner. Con-
ferences were still going on at Ostend between English
and Spanish commissioners. On the part of Elizabeth
there was sincerity, but not blind credulity nor any
disposition to make unworthy concessions. Conferences
quite as protracted have often been held between belli-
gerents while hostilities were being actively carried on.
The large majority of Englishmen were resolved to
196 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
fight to the death against any invader. But, as against
Spain, there was not that eager pugnacity which a
war with France always called forth, except, perhaps,
among the sea-rovers ; and even they would have
contented themselves, if it had been possible, with
the unrecognised privateering which had so long given
them the profits of war with the immunities of peace.
The rest of the nation respected their Queen for her
persevering endeavour to find a way of reconciliation
with an ancient ally, and to limit, in the meantime,
the area of hostilities. They were confident, and with
good reason, that she would surrender no important
interest, and that aggressive designs would be met,
as they had always been met, more than half-way.
The story of the great victory is too well known to
need repetition here. But some comments are necessary.
It is usual, for one reason or other, to exaggerate the
disparity of the opposing fleets, and to represent
England as only saved from impending ruin by the
extraordinary daring of her seamen, and a series of
fortunate accidents. The final destruction of the
Armada, after the pursuit was over, was certainly the
work of wind and sea. But if we fairly weigh the
available strength on each side, we shall see that the
English commanders might from the first feel, as they
did feel, a reasonable assurance of defeating the invaders.
Let us first compare the strength of the fleets :
ENGLISH.
Royal
Private
Ships.
34
163
Tonnage.
11850
17894
Guns.
837
not stated
Mariners.
6279
9506
197
29744
15785
SPANISH.
132
59120
3165
8766
x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 197
The Armada carried besides 21,855 soldiers. 1 The
first thing that strikes us is the immense preponderance
in tonnage on the part of the Spaniards, and in sailors
on the part of the English. This really goes far to
explain the result. Nothing is more certain than that
the Spanish ships, notwithstanding their superior size,
were for fighting and sailing purposes very inferior
to the English. It had always been believed that,
to withstand the heavy seas of the Atlantic, a ship
should be constructed like a lofty fortress. The English
builders were introducing lower and longer hulls and a
greater spread of canvas. Their crews, as has always
been the case in our navy, were equally handy as sailors
and gunners. The Spanish ships were under-manned.
The soldiers were not accustomed to work the guns,
and were of no use unless it came to boarding, which
Howard ordered his captains to avoid. The English
guns, if fewer than the Spanish, were heavier and
worked by more practised men. 2 Their balls not only
cut up the rigging of the Spaniards but tore their
hulls (which were supposed to be cannon-proof), while
the English ships were hardly touched. The slaughter
among the wretched soldiers crowded between decks
was terrible. Blood was seen pouring out of the lee-
scuppers. " The English ships," says a Spanish officer,
"were under such good management that they did
with them what they pleased." The work was done
almost entirely by the Queen's ships. "If you had
1 These figures are taken from Barrow's Life of Drake.
2 We hear of thirty -three-pounders and even sixty -pounders in the
Queen's ships. Whereas the Spanish admiral, sending to Parma for
balls, asks for nothing heavier than ten pounds.
198 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
says Sir William Winter, " the simple service
done by the merchants and coast ships, you would
have said we had been little helped by them, other-
wise than that they did make a show."
The principal and final battle was fought off Grave-
lines (TSTT). The Armada therefore did arrive at its
\ AUg. O /
destination, but only to show that the general plan of
the invasion was an impracticable one. The superiority
in tonnage and number of guns on the morning of that
day, though not what it had been when the fighting
began a week before, was still immense, if superiority
in those particulars had been of any use. But with
this battle the plan of Philip was finally shattered.
So far from being in a condition to cover Parma's
passage, the Spanish admiral was glad to escape as best
he could from the English pursuit.
During the eight days' fight, be it observed, the
Armada had experienced no unfavourable weather or
other stroke of ill-fortune. The wind had been mostly
in the west, and not tempestuous. After the last battle,
when the crippled Spanish ships were drifting upon
the Dutch shoals, it opportunely shifted, and enabled
them to escape into the North Sea.
It would not be easy to find any great naval engage-
ment in which the victors suffered so little. In the
last battle, when they came to close quarters, they had
about sixty killed. During the first seven days their
loss seems to have been almost nil. One vessel only
not belonging to the Queen became entangled among
the enemy, and succumbed. Except the master of this
vessel not one of the captains was killed from first to
last. Many men of rank were serving in the fleet. It
X WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 199
is not mentioned that one of them was so much as
wounded.
Looking at all these facts, we can surely come to
only one conclusion. Philip's plan was hopeless from
the first. Barring accidents, the English were bound
to win. On no other occasion in our history was our
country so well prepared to meet her enemies. Never
was her safety from invasion so amply guaranteed.
The defeat of the Great Armada was the deserved
and crowning triumph of thirty years of good govern-
ment at home and wise policy abroad ; of careful pro-
vision for defence and sober abstinence from adventure
and aggression.
Of the land preparations it is impossible to speak
with equal confidence, as they were never put to the test.
If the Spaniards had landed, Leicester's militia would
no doubt have experienced a bloody defeat. London
might have been taken and plundered. But Parma
himself never expected to become master of the country
without the aid of a great Catholic rising. This, we
may affirm with confidence, would not have taken
place on even the smallest scale. Overwhelming forces
would soon have gathered round the Spaniards. They
would probably have retired to the coast, and there
fortified some place from which it would have been
difficult to dislodge them as long as they retained the
command of the sea. ^
Such seems to have been the utmost success which,
in the most favourable event, could have attended the
invasion. A great disaster, no doubt, for England, and
one for which Elizabeth would have been judged by
history with more severity than justice ; for Englishmen
200 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
have always chosen to risk it, down to our own time. 1
No government which insisted on making adequate
provision for the military defence of the country
would have been tolerated then, or, to all appearance,
would be tolerated now. We have always trusted to
our navy. It were to be wished that our naval
superiority were as assured now as when we defeated
the Armada.
The arrangements for feeding the soldiers and
sailors were very defective. A praiseworthy system
of control had been introduced to check waste and
peculation in time of peace. Of course it did not
easily adapt itself to the exigencies of war. Military
operations are sure to suffer where a certain, or rather
uncertain, amount of waste and peculation is not risked.
We have not forgotten the "horrible and heart-rend-
ing" sufferings of our army in the Crimea, which, like
those of Elizabeth's fleet, had to be relieved by private
effort. In the sixteenth century the lot of the soldier
and sailor everywhere was want and disease, varied
at intervals by plunder and excess. Philip's soldiers
and sailors were worse off than Elizabeth's, though he
grudged no money for purposes of war.
Those who profess to be scandalised by the ap-
pointment of Leicester to the command of the army
should point out what fitter choice could have been
mde. He was the only great nobleman with any
military experience ; and to suppose that any one
1 The Earl of Sussex, after inspecting the preparations for defence
in Hampshire towards the end of 1587, writes to the Council that he
had found nothing ready. The "better sort" said, "We are much
charged many ways, and when the enemy comes we will provide for
him ; but he will not come yet."
x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 201
but a great nobleman could have been appointed to
such a command is to show a profound ignorance of
the ideas of the time. He had Sir John Norris, a
really able soldier, as his marshal of the camp.
After all, no one has alleged that he did not do his
duty with energy and intelligence. The story that the
Queen thought of making him her " Lieutenant in the
government of England and Ireland," but was dis-
suaded from it by Burghley and Hatton, rests on no
authority but that of Camden, who is fond of repeating
spiteful gossip about Leicester. No sensible person
will believe that she meant to create a sort of Grand
Vizier. She may have thought of making him what
we should call " Commander-in-Chief." There would
be much to say for such a concentration of authority
while the kingdom was threatened with invasion.
The title of " Lieutenant " was a purely military one,
and began to be applied under the Tudors to the
commanders of the militia in each county. Leicester's
title for the time was " Lieutenant and Captain-General
of the Queen's armies and companies." But we find
him complaining to Walsingham that the patent of
Hunsdon, the commander of the Midland army, gave
him independent powers. " I shall have wrong if he
absolutely command where my patent doth give me
power. You may easily conceive what absurd dealings
are likely to fall out if you allow two absolute com-
manders" (28 July). Camden's story is probably a
confused echo of this dispute.
Writers who are loth to admit that the trust, the
gratitude, the enthusiastic loyalty which Elizabeth in-
spired were the first and most important cause of the
202 3UEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
great victory, have sought to belittle the grandest
moment of her life by pointing out that the famous
speech at Tilbury was made after the battle of Grave-
lines. But the dispersal of the Armada by the storm
of August 5th was not yet known in England. Drake,
writing on the 8th and 10th, thinks that it is gone
to Denmark to refit, and begs the Queen not to
diminish any of her forces. The occasion of the speech
on the 10th seems to have been the arrival of a post
on that day, while the Queen was at dinner in
Leicester's tent, with a false alarm that Parma had
embarked all his forces, and might be expected in
England immediately. 1
But the Lieutenant-General had reached the end of
his career. Three weeks after the Tilbury review he
died of "a continued fever," at the age of fifty-six.
He kept Elizabeth's regard to the last, because she
believed and during the latter part of his life, not
wrongly in his fidelity and devotion. There is no
sign that she at any time valued his judgment or
suffered him to sway her policy, except so far as he
was the mouthpiece of abler advisers ; nor did she
ever allow his enmities, violent as they were, to
prejudice her against any of her other servants. His
fortune was no doubt much above his deserts, and he
has paid the usual penalty. There are few personages
in history about whom so much malicious nonsense
has been written.
We cannot help looking on England as placed in a
quite new position by the defeat of the Armada a
1 Sir Edward Radcliffe to the Earl of Sussex. Ellis, 2nd Series,
vol. iii. p. 142.
x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 203
position of security and independence. In truth, what
was changed was not so much the relative strength of
England and Spain as the opinion of it held by
Englishmen and Spaniards, and indeed by all Europe.
The loss to Philip in mere ships, men, and treasure
was no doubt considerable. But his inability to
conquer England was demonstrated rather than caused
by the destruction of the Armada. Philip himself
talked loftily about "placing another fleet upon the
seas." But his subjects began to see that defence, not
conquest, was now their business and had been for
some time if they had only known it :
Cervi, luporum praeda rapacium,
Sectamur ultro quos opimus
Fallere et effugere est triumphus.
Elizabeth's attitude to Philip underwent a marked
change. Till then she had been unwilling to abandon
the hope of a peaceful settlement. She had dealt him
not a few stinging blows, but always with a certain
restraint and forbearance, because they were meant
for the purpose of bringing him to reason. Thirty
years of patience on his part had led her to believe
that he would never carry retaliation beyond assassina-
tion plots. At last, in his slow way, he had gathered
up all his strength and essayed to crush her. Thence-
forward she was a convert to Drake's doctrine that
attack was the surest way of defence. She had still
good reasons for devolving this work as much as
possible on the private enterprise of her subjects.
The burden fell on those who asked nothing better
than to be allowed to bear it. Thus arose that system,
or rather practice, of leaving national work to be
204 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
executed by private enterprise, which has had so much
to do with the building up of the British Empire.
Private gain has been the mainspring of action.
National defence and aggrandisement have been almost
incidental results. With Elizabeth herself national
and private aims could not be dissevered. The nation
and she had but one purse. She was cheaply defend-
ing England, and she shared in the plunder.
The favourite cruising-ground of the English adven-
turers was off the Azores, where the Spanish treasure
fleets always halted for fresh water and provisions, on
their way to Europe. Some of these expeditions were
on a large scale. But they were not so successful or
profitable, in proportion to their size, as the smaller
ventures of Drake and Hawkins earlier in the reign.
The Spaniards were everywhere on the alert. The
harbours of the New World, which formerly lay in
careless security, were put into a state of defence.
Treasure fleets made their voyages with more caution.
" Not a grain of gold, silver, or pearl, but what must
be got through the fire." The day of great prizes was
gone by.
Two of these expeditions are distinguished by their
importance. The first was a joint-stock venture of
Drake and Norris the foremost sailor and the fore-
most soldier among Englishmen of that day in the
year after the great Armada (April 1589). They and
some private backers found most of the capital. The
Queen contributed six royal ships and 20,000. This
fleet carried no less than 11,000 soldiers, for the aim
was to wrest Portugal from the Spaniard and set up
Don Antonio, a representative of the dethroned dynasty.
X WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 205
Stopping on their way at Corunna, they took the lower
town, destroyed large stores, and defeated in the field
a much superior force marching to the relief of the
place. N orris mined and breached the walls of the
upper town; but the storming parties having been
repulsed with great loss, the army re-embarked and
pursued its voyage. Landing at Penich6, Norris
marched fifty miles by Vimiero and Torres Vedras,
names famous afterwards in the military annals of
England, and on the seventh day arrived before Lisbon.
But he had no battering train ; for Drake, who had
brought the fleet round to the mouth of the Tagus,
judged it dangerous to enter the river. Nor did the
Portuguese rise, as had been hoped. The army there-
fore, marching through the suburbs of Lisbon, rejoined
the fleet at Cascaes, and proceeded toTlYigo. That
town was burnt, and the surrounding country plundered.
This was the last exploit of the expedition. Great
loss and dishonour had been inflicted on Spain ; but no
less than half of the soldiers and sailors had perished
by disease ; and the booty, though said to have been
large, was a disappointment to the survivors.
The other great expedition was in 1596. The
capture of Calais in April of that year by the Spaniards,
had renewed the alarm of invasion, and *it was deter-
mined to meet the danger at a distance from home.
A great fleet, with 6000 soldiers on board, commanded
by Essex and Howard of Efiingham sailed straight to
Cadiz, the principal port and arsenal of Spain. The
harbour was forced by the fleet, the town and castle
stormed by the army, several men-of-war taken or
destroyed, a large merchant-fleet burnt, together with
206 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
an immense quantity of stores and merchandise ; the
total value being estimated at twenty millions of ducats.
This was by far the heaviest blow inflicted by England
upon Spain during the reign, and was so regarded in
Europe ; for though the great Armada had been signally
defeated by the English fleet, its subsequent destruction
was due to the winds and waves. Essex was vehe-
mently desirous to hold Cadiz ; but Effingham and the
Council of War appointed by the Queen would not
hear of it. The expedition accordingly returned home,
having effectually relieved England from the fear of
invasion. The burning of Penzance by four Spanish
galleys (1595) was not much to set against these great
successes.
One reason for the comparative impunity with which
the English assailed the unwieldy empire of Philip was
the insane pursuit of the French crown, to which he
devoted all his resources after the murder of Henry in.
In 1598, with one foot in the grave, and no longer able
to conceal from himself that, with the exception of
the conquest of Portugal, all the ambitious schemes of
his life had failed, he was fain to conclude the peace
of Yervins with Henry IV. Henry was ready to insist
that England and the United Provinces should be com-
prehended in the treaty. Philip offered terms which
Elizabeth would have welcomed ten years earlier. He
proposed that the whole of the Low Countries should
be constituted a separate sovereignty under his son-
in-law the Archduke Albert. The Dutch, who were
prospering in war as well as in trade, scouted the offer.
English feeling was divided. There was a war-party
headed by Essex and Kaleigh, personally bitter enemies,
x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 207
but both athirst for glory, conquest, and empire, believ-
ing in no right but that of the strongest, greedy for
wealth, and disdaining the slower, more laborious, and
more legitimate modes of acquiring it. They were
tired of campaigning it in France arid the Low
Countries, where hard knocks and beggarly plunder
were all that a soldier had to look to. They proposed
to carry a great English army across the Atlantic, to
occupy permanently the isthmus of Panama, and from
that central position to wrestle with the Spaniard for
the trade and plunder of the New World. The peace
party held that these ambitious schemes would bring
no profit except possibly to a few individuals; that
the treasury would be exhausted and the country
irritated by taxation and the pressing of soldiers ; that
to re-establish the old commercial intercourse with
Spain would be more reputable and attended with
more solid advantage to the nation at large ; and finally,
that the English arms would be much better employed
in a thorough conquest of Ireland. These were the
views of Burghley ; and they were strongly supported
by Buckhurst, the best of the younger statesmen who
now surrounded Elizabeth.
Elizabeth always encouraged her ministers to speak
their minds ; but, as Buckhurst said on this occasion,
"when they have done their extreme duty she wills
what she wills." She determined to maintain the
treaty of 1585 with the Dutch; but she took the op-
portunity of getting it amended in such a way as to
throw upon them a larger share of the expenses of the
war, and to provide more definitely for the ultimate
repayment of her advances.
208 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
We have seen that three years before the Armada
Elizabeth had lost the French alliance, which had till
then been the key-stone of her policy. Since then,
though aware that Henry in. wished her well, and that
he would thwart the Spanish faction as much as he
dared, she had not been able to count on him. He
might at any moment be pushed by Guise into an at-
tack on England, either with or without the concurrence
of Spain. The accession, therefore, of Henry iv. afforded
her great relief. In him she had a sure ally. It is
true that, like her other allies the Dutch, he was more
in a condition to require help than to afford it. But
the more work she provided for Philip in Holland or
France, the safer England would be. The armies of
the Holy League might be formidable to Henry ; but
as long as he could hold them at bay they were not
dangerous to England. She had never quite got over
her scruple about helping the Dutch against their
lawful sovereign. But Henry iv. was the legitimate
King of France, and she could heartily aid him to put
down his rebels. From 2000 to 5000 English troops
were therefore constantly serving in France down to
the peace of Vervins.
Philip, in defiance of the Salic law, claimed the
crown of France for his daughter in right of her mother,
who was a sister of Henry in. To Brittany he alleged
that she had a special claim, as being descended from
Anne of Brittany, which the Bourbons were not.
Brittany, therefore, he invaded at once by sea. Eliza-
beth, alarmed by the proximity of this Spanish force, de-
sired that her troops in France should be employed in
expelling it, and that they should be vigorously supported
x WAR WITH SPAIN : 1587-1603 209
by Henry rv. Henry, on the other hand, was always
drawing away the English to serve his more pressing
needs in other parts of France. This brought upon
him many harsh rebukes and threats from the English
Queen. But she had, for the first time, met her match.
He judged, and rightly, that she would not desert him.
So, with oft-repeated apologies, light promises, and well-
turned compliments, he just went on doing what suited
him best, getting all the fighting he could out of the
English, and airily eluding Elizabeth's repeated de-
mands for some coast town, which could be held, like
Brill and Flushing, as a security for her heavy subsidies.
When Henry was reconciled to the Catholic Church,
Elizabeth went through the form of expressing surprise
and regret at a step which she must have long ex-
pected, and must have felt to be wise (1593). Her
alliance with Henry was not shaken. It was drawn
even closer by a new treaty, each sovereign engaging
not to make peace without the consent of the other.
This engagement did not prevent Henry from con-
cluding the separate peace of Vervins five years later,
when he judged that his interest required it (1598).
Elizabeth's dissatisfaction was, this time, genuine
enough. But Henry was no longer her protege", a
homeless, landless, penniless king, depending on
English subsidies, roaming over the realm he called his
own with a few thousands, or sometimes hundreds, of
undisciplined cavaliers, who gathered and dispersed at
their own pleasure. He was master of a re-united
France, and could no longer be either patronised or
threatened. Elizabeth might expostulate, and declare
that " if there was such a sin as that against the Holy
210 QUEEN ELIZABETH CH. x
Ghost it must needs be ingratitude : " gratitude was
a sentiment to which she was as much a stranger as
Henry. The only difference between them was the
national one : the Englishwoman preached ; the French-
man mocked. What made her so sore was that he
had, so to speak, stolen her policy from her. His
predecessor had always suspected her and with good
reason of intending "to draw her neck out of the
collar" if once she could induce him to undertake a
joint war. The joint war had at length been under-
taken by Henry iv., and it was he who had managed
to slip out of it first, while Elizabeth, who longed for
peace, was obliged to stand by the Dutch.
The two sovereigns, however, knew their own
interests too well to quarrel. Henry gave Elizabeth
to understand that his designs against Spain had
undergone no change ; he was only halting for breath ;
he would help the Dutch underhand just what she
used to say to Henry in. She had now to deal with
a French King as sagacious as herself, and a great deal
more prompt and vigorous in action ; not the man to
be made a cat's-paw by any one. She had to accept
him as a partner, if not on her own terms, then on his.
Both sovereigns were thoroughly veracious in Carlyle's
sense of the word. That is to say, their policy was
determined not by passion, or vanity, or sentiment of
any kind, but by enlightened self-interest, and was
therefore calculable by those who knew how to cal-
culate.
CHAPTEE XI
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601
IT was a boast of Elizabeth that when once her ser-
vants were chosen she did not lightly displace them.
Difference of opinion from their mistress, or from one
another, did not involve resignation or dismissal,
because, though they were free to speak their minds,
all had to carry out with fidelity and even zeal, what-
ever policy the Queen prescribed. This condition they
accepted ; not only the astute and compliant Burghley,
but the more eager and opinionated Walsingham ; and
therefore they had practically a life-tenure of office.
Soon after the Armada the first generation of them
began to disappear. Bacon, Sussex, and Bedford were
already gone. Leicester died in 1588; his brother
Warwick, and Mildmay in 1589; Walsingham and
Randolph in 1591 ; Hatton in 1592 ; Grey de Wilton
in 1593; Knollys and Hunsdon in 1596. Of the
trusty servants with whom she began her reign,
Burghley alone remained. The leading men of the
new generation were Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's
second son, trained to business under his father's eye,
and of qualities similar, though inferior ; Nottingham
211
212 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
(formerly Howard of Effingham), a straightforward
man of no great ability, but acceptable to the Queen
for his father's services and his own (and not the less
so for his fine presence) ; the accomplished Buckhurst ;
the brilliant Raleigh ; and, younger than the rest, Essex.
The last was the son of a man much favoured by
Elizabeth. Leicester was his step-father, Knollys his
grandfather, Hunsdon his great-uncle, Walsingham
his father-in-law, Burghley his guardian. Ardent,
impulsive, presumptuous, a warm friend, a rancorous
enemy, profuse in expense, lawless in his amours,
jealous of his equals, brooking no superior, impatient
of all rule or order that delayed him from leaping at
once to the highest place, he was possessed with a
most exaggerated notion of his own capacity, which
appears to have been only moderate. As the ward of
Burghley he had been much in the company of his
future enemy, Robert Cecil, whose sly prim ways were
most unlike his own. The contrast did him no harm
with the public, to whom the younger man was a
Tom Jones and the elder a Blifil. Two vastly abler
men, Francis Bacon and Raleigh, less advantageously
placed, but unhampered with any scruples, were busily
trying to profit by the all-pervading animosity of Ceci 1
and Essex.
Belonging, as Essex did by his connections, to the
inner circle who stood closest to Elizabeth, it was
natural that she should take an interest in him, and
give him opportunities for turning his showy qualities
to account. In 1586 he was sent to the Low Countries
as general of cavalry under his step-father, Leicester.
He distinguished himself by his fiery valour in the
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 213
expeditions to Spain, and as commander of the English
army in France, though he does not seem to have had
any real military talent. But Elizabeth's regard for
him was soon shaken by his presumptuous and unruly
behaviour. When he fought a duel with Sir Charles
Blount because she had conferred some favour on the
latter, she swore " by God's death it were fitting some
one should take him down and teach him better
manners, or there were no rule with him." He
displeased her by his quarrels with Cecil and Effing-
ham, and his discontented grumbling. She was highly
dissatisfied with his management of the Azores ex-
pedition in 1597. In July 1598, at a meeting of the
Council, she was provoked by his insolence to strike
him; and though after three months he obtained his
pardon, he never regained her favour.
It was at this time that Burghley died (August 4),
in his seventy-eighth year. Elizabeth, though she
could call him " a froward old fool " about a trifling
matter (March 1596), could not but feel that much
was changed when she lost the able and faithful
servant who had worked with her for forty years.
"She seemeth to take it very grievously, shedding
of tears and separating herself from all company."
Buckhurst was the new Treasurer.
Essex had for some time cast his eyes on Ireland as
a field where glory and power might be won. There
can be little doubt that he was already speculating on
the advantage that the possession of an army might
give him in any difficulty with his rivals or with the
Queen herself. Cecil perfidiously advocated his ap-
pointment to a post which had been the grave of so
214 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
many reputations. The Queen at length consented,
though reluctantly. Essex was a popular favourite.
He had managed it is not very clear how to win
the confidence of both Puritans and Papists. The
general belief was that, for the first time since she
had mounted the throne, Elizabeth was afraid of one
of her subjects.
During the whole of the reign Ireland had been a
cause of trouble and anxiety. Elizabeth's treatment
of that unhappy country was not more creditable or
successful than that of other English statesmen before
and after her. There was the same absence of any
systematic policy steadily carried out, the same weari-
some and disreputable alternation between bursts of
savage repression and intervals of pusillanimity, con-
cession, and neglect. In the competition of the various
departments of the public service for attention and
expenditure, Ireland generally came last. All other
needs had to be served first whether at home or
abroad.
In the early years of the reign the chief trouble lay
in Ulster, then the most purely Celtic part of Ireland,
and practically untouched by English conquest. Twice,
in her weariness of the struggle with Shan O'Neill,
Elizabeth conceded to him something like a sub-
kingship of Ulster in return for his nominal sub-
mission. In the end he was beaten, and his head
was fixed on the walls of Dublin Castle (1566). But
nothing further was done to anglicise Ulster. During
the attempt of the Devonshire adventurers to colonise
South Munster (1569-71), and the consequent re-
bellion, the northern province remained an unconcerned
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 215
spectator. Nor did it join in the great Desmond
rising (1579-83), which, with the insurrection of the
Catholic lords of the Pale and the landing of the Pope's
Italians at Smerwick, was the Irish branch of the
threefold attack on Elizabeth directed by Gregory xin.
The attempt of the elder Essex to colonise Antrim
(1573-75) was a disastrous failure, and Ulster still
remained practically independent of the Dublin Govern-
ment.
The most successful Deputy of the reign was Perrot
(1584-87), a valiant soldier and strict ruler, who, after
long experience in the Irish wars, had come to the con-
clusion that what Ireland most wanted was justice.
The native chiefs, released from the constant dread of
spoliation, and finding that English encroachment was
repressed as inflexibly as Irish disorder, became quiet
and friendly. But this system did not suit the domi-
nant race. The Deputy was accused to the Queen of
seeking to betray the country to the Irish and the
Spaniard. Recalled, and put upon his trial for treason,
he was found guilty on suborned evidence, and
sentenced to death. It is usually said that his real
offence was some disrespectful language about the
Queen, which he confessed. But it seems that she
forbore to take his life precisely because she would
not have it thought that she was influenced by personal
resentment.
His successor, Fitzwilliam, was a Deputy of the old
sort greedy, violent, careless of consequences, and
always acting on the principle that, as against an
Englishman, a Celt had no rights. The execution of
MacMahon in Monaghan, and the confiscation of his
216 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
lands on a trivial pretext, alarmed the North. Ulster
had not been bled white like the rest of Ireland.
The O'Neills had a nephew of their old hero Shan for
their chief, who had been brought up at the English
Court and made Earl of Tyrone by Elizabeth. An
educated and remarkably able man, he had none of his
uncle's illusions. He clung to his ancestral rights and
dignity, but he hoped to preserve them by zealously
discharging his obligations as a vassal of the Queen.
He served in the war against Desmond, and exerted
himself to maintain order in Ulster. But he had no
mind to sink into the position of a mere dignified
land-owner like the English nobles; nor indeed, under
such a Deputy as Fitzwilliam, was he likely to pre-
serve even his lands if he lost his power. Eather than
that, he determined to enter into what he knew was
a most unequal struggle, on the off-chance of pulling
through by help from Spain. It is clear that he was
driven into rebellion against his inclination. But
when he had once drawn the sword he maintained the
struggle against one Deputy after another with wonder-
ful tenacity and resource. For the first time in Irish
history, the rebel forces were disciplined and armed
like those of the crown, and stood up to them in equal
numbers on equal terms. At length, in August 1598,
Tyrone inflicted upon Sir Henry Bagnall near Armagh
the severest defeat that the English had ever suffered
in Ireland; slaying 1500 of his men, and capturing all
his artillery and baggage. Insurrections at once broke
out all over Ireland.
This was the situation with which Essex undertook
to deal. He had loudly blamed other Deputies for
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 217
not vigorously attacking Tyrone in his own country.
Vigour was the one military quality which he himself
possessed. He went with the title of Lieutenant and
Governor-General, and with extraordinary powers, at
the head of 21,000 men such an army as had never
been sent to Ireland (April 1599). The Queen,
who trembled at the expense, and did not wish to see
any of her nobles, least of all Essex, permanently
established in a great military command, enjoined him
to push at once into Ulster, a^ he had himself pro-
posed, and finish the war. Instead of doing this, he
went south into districts that had been depopulated
and desolated by the savage warfare of the last thirty
years. Even here he met with discreditable reverses.
When he got back to Dublin (July) his army was
reduced by disease and desertion to less than 5000
men. Disregarding the Queen's express prohibition,
he made his friend Southampton General of horse.
When she censured his bad management, he replied
with impertinent complaints about the favour she was
showing to Cecil, Raleigh, and Cobham, and began to
consult with his friends about carrying selected troops
over to England to remove them. Rumours of his
intention to return reached the Queen. "We do
charge you," she wrote, "as you tender our pleasure,
that you adventure not to come out of that kingdom."
He declared that he could not invade Ulster without
reinforcements. They were sent, and at length he
marched into Louth (September). There he was met
by Tyrone, who, in an interview, completely twisted
him round his finger, and obtained a cessation of arms
and the promise of concessions amounting to what
218 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP
would now be called Home Kule. A few days later, on
receipt of an angry letter from the Queen forbidding
him to grant any terms without her permission, he
deserted his post and hurried to England. The first
notice Elizabeth received of this astounding piece of
insubordination was his still more astounding incur-
sion into her bedroom, all muddy from his ride, before
she was completely dressed (September 28, 1599).
Elizabeth seems to have been so much taken aback
by the Earl's unparalleled presumption, that she did
not blaze out as might have been expected. She gave
him audience an hour or two later, and heard what he
had to say. Probably he adopted an injured tone as
usual, and inveighed against " that knave Raleigh "
and " that sycophant Cobham." But his insubordina-
tion had been gross, and no talking could make it
anything else. It was more dangerous than Leicester's
disobedience in 1586, because it came from a vastly
more dangerous person. The same afternoon the
Queen referred the matter to the Council. Essex was
put under arrest, and never saw her again. The more
she reflected, the more indignant and alarmed she
became. " By God's son," she said to Harington, " I
am no Queen ; this man is above me." After a delay
of nine months, occasioned by his illness, the fallen
favourite was brought before a special Commission on
the charge of contempt and disobedience, and sentenced
to be suspended from his offices and confined to his
house during the Queen's pleasure (June 1600). In
a few weeks he was released from arrest, but he could
not obtain permission to appear at court, though he
implored it in most abject letters.
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 219
There are persons who consider themselves to be
intolerably wronged and persecuted if they cannot
have precedence and power over their fellow-citizens.
Essex was such a person. Instead of being thankful
that he had escaped the punishment which under
most sovereigns he would have suffered, he entered
into criminal plots for coercing, if not overthrowing,
che Queen. He urged the Scotch King to enforce the
recognition of his title by arms. He tried to persuade
Mountjoy, his successor in Ireland, to carry his army
to Scotland to co-operate with James. These intrigues
were not known to the Government. But it did not
escape observation that he was collecting men of the
sword in the neighbourhood of his house ; that he was
holding consultations with suspected nobles and gentle-
men (some of whom were afterwards engaged in the
Gunpowder Plot); that the Puritan clergy were preach-
ing and praying for his cause; and that there was
a certain ferment in the city. Essex was therefore
summoned to attend before the Council. Instead of
obeying, he flew to arms, with Lords Southampton,
Rutland, Sandys, Cromwell, and Monteagle, and about
300 gentlemen. But the citizens of London did not
respond to his appeal, and the insurrection was easily
suppressed, less than a dozen persons being slain on
both sides (February 8, 1601). A more senseless and
profligate attempt to overthrow a good government
it would be difficult to find in history. It was not
dignified by any semblance of principle, and it would
sufficiently stamp the character of its author, even if it
stood alone as an evidence of his vanity, egotism, and
want of common sense.
220 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
The trial and execution of the principal malefactor
followed as a matter of course and without delay
(February 25). It would have been scandalous to
spare him. Elizabeth had once been fond of him, and
had no reason to be ashamed of it. To talk of her
" passion " and her " amorous inclination," as Hume
and others have done, is revolting and malignant
nonsense. It is creditable to old age when it can
take pleasure in the unfolding of bright and promising
youth. But royal favour was not good for such a man
as Essex. It developed the worst features in his
showy but faulty character. As he steadily deterio-
rated, her regard cooled ; but so much of it remained
that she tried to amend him by chastisement, "ad
correctionem" as she said, " non ad ruinam." She had
long before warned him that, though she had put up
with much disrespect to her person, he must not touch
her sceptre, or he would be dealt with according to the
law of England. She was as good as her word, and,
though the memory of it was painful to her, there is
not the smallest evidence that she ever repented of
having allowed the law to take its course. 1 Only three
of the accomplices of Essex were punished capitally.
The five peers, none of them powerful or formidable,
experienced Elizabeth's accustomed clemency.
It has been suggested by an admirer of Essex that
he failed in Ireland . because his " sensitively attuned
nature " shrank from the systematic desolation and
starvation afterwards employed by his successor. No
1 The story of the ring, said to have been intercepted by Lady
Nottingham, has been shown to be unworthy of belief. See Ranke,
History of England, vol. i. p. 352 ; transl.
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 221
evidence is offered for this suggestion. In a letter to
the Queen (June 25, 1599) he advocates "burning
and spoiling the country in all places" which method
"shall starve the rebels in one year." This course
Mountjoy carried out. With means far inferior to
those of Essex, and notwithstanding the landing of
3000 Spaniards at Kinsale (September 1601), he was
the first Englishman who completely subdued Ireland.
Tyrone surrendered a few days before the Queen's
death.
Little has been said in these pages about parlia-
mentary proceedings. The real history of the reign
does not lie there. The country was governed wholly
by the Queen, with the advice of her Council, and not
at all by Parliament. In the forty-five years of her
reign there were only thirteen sessions of Parliament.
The functions of Parliament were to vote grants of
money when the ordinary revenues of the crown were
insufficient, and to make laws. Its right in these
matters was unquestioned. If the Queen had never
wanted subsidies or penal laws against her political
and religious opponents (of other laws she often said
there were more than enough already), it would never
have been summoned at all ; nor is there any reason
to suppose that the country would have complained as
long as it was governed with prudence and success.
In fact, to do without Parliaments was distinctly
popular, because it meant doing without subsidies.
In the thirty years preceding the Armada the
sessions of Parliament being nine Elizabeth applied
for only eight subsidies, and of one of them a portion
was remitted. By her economy she not only defrayed
222 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
the expenses of government out of the ordinary
revenue, which, at the end of the reign was about
300,000 a year, but paid off old debts. It was not till
the twenty-fourth year of her reign that she discharged
the last of her father's debts, up to which time she had
been paying interest on it. Subsequently she even
accumulated a small reserve, which, as she told Parlia-
ment, was a most necessary thing if she was not to
be driven to borrow on sudden emergency. But this
reserve vanished immediately she became involved in
the great war with Spain ; and during the last fifteen
years of her life, although she received twelve sub-
sidies, she was always in difficulty for money. She had
to sell crown lands to the value of 372,000. Par-
liament, which had voted the usual single subsidies
without complaint, grumbled and pretended poverty
when she asked for three and even four. 1 Bacon's
famous outburst (1593) about gentlemen having to
sell their plate and farmers their brass pots to pay the
tax, was a piece of claptrap. The nation was, rela-
tively to former times, rolling in wealth. But the old
belief had still considerable strength that govern-
ment being the affair of the King, not of his subjects,
he should provide for its expenses out of his hereditary
income, just as they paid their private expenses out of
their private incomes ; that he had no more claim to
dip into their pockets than they had to dip into his ;
and that a subsidy, as its name imports, was an
occasional and extraordinary assistance furnished as
a matter not of duty but of good-will.
1 The increase was not so great as it appears. A subsidy with two
tenths and fifteenths in the thirteenth year of the reign yielded
175,000 ; in the forty-third only 134,000.
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 223
This might have been healthy doctrine when kings
were campaigning on the Continent for personal or
dynastic objects. It was out of place when a large
expenditure was indispensable for the interests and
safety of the country. The grumbling, therefore, about
taxation towards the end of the reign was unreason-
able and discreditable to the grumblers. The Queen
met them with her usual good sense. She explained
to them though, as she correctly said, she was under
no constitutional obligation to do so how the money
went, what she had spent on the Spanish war, on
Ireland, and in loans to the Dutch and the French
King. The plea was unanswerable. Her private ex-
penditure was on a very modest scale. In particular
she had never indulged in that besetting and cosfly sin
of princes, palace-building ; and this at a time when
the noble mansions which still testify to the wealth of
the England of that day were rising in every county.
Her only extravagance was dress. Some have carped
at her collection of jewelry. But jewels, like the silver
balustrades of Frederick William I., were a mode of
hoarding, and in her later years she reconverted jewels
into money to meet the expenses of the State. Modern
writers, who so airily blame her for not subsidising
more liberally her Scotch, Dutch, and French allies,
would find it difficult, if they condescended to particu-
lars, to explain how she was able to give them as much
money as she did.
It is common to make much of the debate on
monopolies in the last Parliament of Elizabeth (1601),
as showing the rise of a spirit of resistance to the royal
prerogative. I do not think that the report of that
224 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
debate would convey such an impression to any one
reading it without preconceived views. None of the
speakers contested the prerogative. They only com-
plained that it was being exercised in a way prejudicial
to the public interest. If the monopolies had been
unimportant, or if the patentees had used their privilege
less greedily, there would evidently have been no
complaint as to the principle involved. No course of
action was decided on, because the Queen intervened
by a message in which she stated that she had not
been aware of the abuses prevailing, that she was as
indignant at them as Parliament could be, and that
she would put a stop, not to monopolies, but to such
as were injurious. With this message the House of
Commons was more than satisfied. As a matter of fact
monopolies went on till dealt with by the declaratory
statute in the twenty-first year of James I.
If the last Tudor handed down the English Constitu-
tion to the first Stuart as she had received it from her
predecessors, unchanged either in theory or practice, it
was far otherwise with the English Church. There
are two conflicting views as to the historical position
of the Church in this country. According to one it
was, all through the Middle Age, National as well as
Catholic. The changes which took place at the Refor-
mation made no difference in that respect, and involved
no break in its continuity. It is not a Protestant
Church. It is still National and still Catholic, resting
on precisely the same foundations, and existing by the
same title as it did in the days .of Dunstan and Becket.
According to the other view, the epithets National and
Catholic are contradictory. A Church which undergoes
XT DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 225
radical changes of government, worship, and doctrine
is no longer the same Church but a new one, and must
be held to have been established by the authority
which prescribed these changes, which, in this case,
was the Queen and Parliament. The word "Protestant"
was avoided in its formularies to make conformity
easier for Catholics ; but it is a Protestant Church all
the same. Whichever of these views is nearer to the
truth, it cannot be denied that, by the legislation of
Elizabeth the English Church became what it was
not in the Middle Age a spiritual organisation en-
tirely dependent on the State. This it remains still ;
the supremacy having been virtually transferred from
the crown to Parliament in the next century. I shall
not venture to inquire how far this condition of
dependence has affected its ability and inclination to
perform the part of a true spiritual power. It is
enough to say that no act of will on the part of any
English statesman has had such important and lasting
consequences, for good or for evil, as the decision of
Elizabeth to make the Church of England what it is.
We have seen that the government and worship of
the Church were established by Act of Parliament in
1559, and its doctrines in 1571. But when once
Elizabeth had placed her ecclesiastical powers beyond
dispute, by obtaining statutory sanction for them, she
allowed no further interference by Parliament. All its
attempts, even at mere discussion of ecclesiastical
matters, she peremptorily suppressed. She supplied
any further legislation that was needed by virtue of
her supremacy, and she exercised her ecclesiastical
government by the Court of High Commission. The
P
226 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
new Anglican model was acquiesced in by the majority
of the nation. But it had, at first, no hearty support
except from the Government. The earnest religion-
ists were either Catholics or Puritans. The object of
Elizabeth was to compel these two extreme parties to
outward conformity of worship. What their real beliefs
were she did not care.
The large majority of the Catholics showed a loyal
and patriotic spirit at the time of the Armada. But
they were not treated with confidence by the Govern-
ment. Great numbers of them were imprisoned or
confined in the houses of Protestant gentlemen, by way
of precaution, when the Armada was approaching. No
Catholic, I believe, was intrusted with any command
either by land or sea ; and after the danger was over,
the persecution, in all its forms, became sharper than
ever. There was the less reason for this, inasmuch
as it was no secret that the secular priests and the
great majority of the English Catholics had become
bitterly hostile to the small Jesuitical faction whose
treasonable conspiracies had brought so much trouble
on their loyal co-religionists.
The term " Puritan " is used loosely, though con-
veniently, to designate several shades of belief. By
far the larger number of those to whom it is applied
were, and meant to remain, members of the Established
Church. They objected to certain ceremonies and
vestments. They hoped to procure the abolition of
these, and, in the meantime, evadod them when they
could. They were what would now be called the
Evangelical or Low Church party. They held Calvin's
distinctive doctrines on predestination, as indeed did
n DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 227
most of the bishops ; but though preferring his Presby-
terian organisation, or something like it, they did not
treat it as essential. They were broadly distinguished
from the Brownists or Independents, then an insig-
nificant minority, who held each congregation to be a
church, and therefore protested against the establish-
ment of any national church.
Though Elizabeth persecuted the Catholics with a
severity steadily increasing in proportion as they be-
came less numerous and formidable, she remained to
the last anxious to make conformity easy for them.
This was her reason for so obstinately refusing the
concessions in the matter of ritual and vestments
trifling as they appear to the modern mind which
would have satisfied almost the whole of the Puritan
party. This policy (for policy it assuredly was rather
than conviction), which drove the most earnest Pro-
testants into an attitude of opposition destined in the
next two reigns to have such serious consequences, has
been severely censured. But there can be no question
that it did answer the purpose she had in view,
which for the moment was most important. It did
induce great numbers of Catholics to conform. She
avoided a civil war in her own time between Catholics
and Anglicans at the price of a civil war later on
between Anglicans and Puritans. Looking at the
great drama as a whole, perhaps the Puritans of the
Great Eebellion might congratulate themselves on the
part that Elizabeth chose to play in its earlier acts.
It cannot be doubted that a civil war in the sixteenth
century between Catholics and Protestants would have
been waged with far more ferocity than was displayed
228 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP,
by either Cavaliers or Koundheads, and would have
been attended with the horrors of foreign invasion.
To conciliate the earnest religionists on both sides
was impossible. Elizabeth chose the via media, and
the successful equilibrium which she maintained during
nearly half a century proves that she hit upon what
in her own day was the true centre of gravity.
But while doing justice to Elizabeth's insight and
prudence, we may not excuse her extreme severity to
the nonconformists of either party. It was not neces-
sary. It seems to have been even impolitic. It arose
from her arbitrary temper from a quality, that is to
say, valuable in a ruler, but apt, in great rulers, to be
somewhat in excess. I have condemned her persecution
of the Catholics. Her persecution of the Protestant
nonconformists was marked by even greater injustice.
Against the Catholics it might at least be urged that their
opinions logically led to disloyalty. But the Indepen-
dents, Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, were indisputably
loyal men. They were put to death nominally for
spreading writings which, contrary to common sense,
were held to be seditious, but really for their religious
opinions, which, in the case of the first two, were
extracted from them by the interrogatories of Arch-
bishop Whitgift, an Inquisitor as strenuous and
merciless as Torquemada. Some of the Council, espe-
cially Burghley and Knollys, were strongly opposed to
Whitgift's proceedings. It must therefore be assumed
that he had the Queen's personal approval. She had
committed herself to a struggle with intrepid and
obstinate men. The crowded gaols were a visible
demonstration that she could not compel them to
xi DOMESTIC AFFAIRS : 1588-1601 229
submit ; and to hang them all was out of the question.
An Act was therefore passed in 1593, by which those
who would not promise to attend church were to be
banished the country. Thus most of the Independents
were at last got rid of. The non-separatist Puritans,
who aimed at less radical changes, and hoped to effect
them, if not under their present sovereign, yet under
her successor, kept on the windy side of the law,
attending church once a month, and not entering till
the service was nearly over. Thus, at the end of her
reign, Elizabeth perhaps flattered herself that she was
within measurable distance of religious uniformity.
CHAPTER XII
LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603,
THE death of Mary Stuart did something to simplify
parties in Scotland; and, if her son had possessed
the qualities of a ruler, he would have had a better
chance of reducing his kingdom to order than any
of his predecessors, because a middle class was at
length rising into importance. As far as knowledge
and discernment went, he was an able politician, and
on several occasions he showed not only skill in his
combinations, but what he is not generally credited
with by those who study only his career in England
considerable energy and courage. But he was
wanting in perseverance, and a slave to idle pleasures.
He had always some favourite upon whom he lavished
any money that came into his hands. What was
needed in his own interest and that of his country
was that he should exercise rigid economy, develop
all the forces that made for order, ally himself with
the burghs and lower barons, cultivate good relations
with the Kirk, industriously attend to all the details
of government, and seize every opportunity to humble
the great nobles of whatever party or creed. Instead
280
OH. xii LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603 231
of this, he tried to maintain himself by balancing
rival parties, and employing one nobleman to execute
his vengeance on another. Instead of honestly and
zealously seconding the policy of Elizabeth, and so
deserving her confidence and support, which would
have been of the utmost value to him, he tried to
levy blackmail on her by coquetting with Spain and
the Catholics.
Elizabeth is accused of deliberately encouraging
Scottish factions in order to keep the northern king-
dom weak. She certainly supported Stewart, Earl of
Bothwell, a turbulent and unprincipled man, while
he was the antagonist of the Catholic nobles who
were inviting the Spaniard. But it is plain that she
desired nothing so much as to see James crush all
aristocratic disorder, and make himself master of his
kingdom. Her exhortations to him on this subject
are full of wisdom, and expressed in most stirring lan-
guage. But they only produced petitions for money.
Notwithstanding her own difficulties, she long allowed
him 3000 a year, which, in 1600, was increased to
6000. But ten times that amount would have done
him no good, because he would immediately have
squandered it.
As Elizabeth grew old, James naturally became
absorbed in the prospect of his succession to the
English crown. All Scotchmen shared his eagerness.
In England, feeling was almost unanimous in his
favour, though some of the Catholics continued to
talk of the Infanta or Arabella Stuart the niece of
Darnley. By teasing Elizabeth to recognise his title,
intriguing with her courtiers, and calling on his own
232 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
subjects to furnish him with the means of asserting
his rights, James irritated the English Queen. But
she had always intended that he should succeed her,
and she did nothing to prejudice his claim.
The two leading men at the English court Cecil
and Raleigh who had been united in their hostility
to Essex, were now secretly competing for the favour
of James. Each warned the Scottish King against
the other, and represented himself as the only trust-
worthy adviser. Cecil, from his confidential relations
with the Queen, had the most difficult game to play,
and it was not till her health was evidently failing
that he ventured to open private communications with
James. Even then he did not dare to correspond
with him directly, but it was understood that every-
thing written by Lord Henry Howard (brother of
the last Duke of Norfolk) was to be taken as written
by Cecil. To make up for his previous backwardness,
he lent James 10,000 a pledge of fidelity which it
was out of his rival's power to emulate.
The long career of Elizabeth was now drawing to
its close. Her sun might seem to be going down in
calm splendour. She had triumphed over all her
enemies. She might say with Virgil's" heroine
" Vixi, et quern dederat cursum fortuna, peregi ;
Et mine magna mei sub terras ibit imago."
The mighty Philip had gone to his grave five years
before her (1598), a beaten man, having failed in
Holland, failed in France, failed against England.
Of the three great champions who withstood him,
Elizabeth, if not the most distinguished by high
xn LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603 233
qualities, had yet, perhaps, the largest share in saving
Europe from the retrograde tyranny which menaced it.
The glorious resistance of William of Orange covered
only sixteen years (1568-84). That of Henry IV.
can hardly be said to have had any European import-
ance before his accession to the French throne, from
which date to the peace of Vervins and the death
of Philip is a period of nine years (1589-98). But
the whole of Elizabeth's long reign was spent in
abating the power of Spain. It was the persistent,
never-relaxing pressure from an unassailable enemy
which wore out Philip, as it afterwards wore out
Bonaparte. Elizabeth had found England weak and
distracted : she was leaving it united and powerful.
Nor was she of those to whom their due meed of
praise is denied during life, and accorded only by the
tardy justice of posterity. Her wisdom and courage
were the admiration not of her own people alone,
but of all Europe. " Her very enemies," says a
French historian, "proclaimed her the most glorious
and fortunate of all women who ever wore a crown."
From the point of view of public life, little or nothing
was wanting so Bacon thought to fill up the full
measure of her felicity.
Yet it seems that the last months of her life were
clouded by melancholy, and deformed by a querulous
ill-temper. Some have suggested that she suffered
from remorse for her severity to Essex; others that
she felt herself out of sympathy with the Puritan
tendencies of the time. It is not necessary to resort
to these unfounded or far-fetched suppositions to
account for her gloom. If we turn from her public
234 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
to her private life, what situation could be more
profoundly pitiable] Honour and obedience, indeed,
still surrounded her. But that which also should
accompany old age, love and troops of friends, she
might not look to have. Near relations she had none.
Alone she had chosen to live, and alone she must
die. As her time approached, she was haunted by
the consciousness that, among all those who treated
her with so much reverence, there was not one who
had any reason to be attached to her or to care that
her life should be prolonged. Those who have not
loved when they were young must not expect to find
love when they are old. While health and strength
remained, she had tasted the satisfaction of living
her own life and playing the great game of politics,
for which she was exceptionally gifted. But to a
woman who has passed through life without knowing
what it is to love or be loved, who has no memory
of even an unrequited affection to feed on, who has
never shared a husband's joys and sorrows, never
borne the sweet burden of maternity, never suckled
babe or rocked cradle, who must finish her journey
alone, sitting in the solemn twilight before the last
dark hour uncared for and uncaring, without the
cheer of children or the varied interests that gather
round the family to such a one, what avails it that
she has tasted the excitement of public life, that she
has borne a share in politics or business what even
that her aims have been high or that she has done
the State some service, if she has renounced the crown
of womanhood, and turned from their appointed use
those numbered years within which the female heart
i LAST YEARS AND DEATH: 1601-1603 235
can find present joy and lay up store of calm satis-
faction for declining age 1
Elizabeth had always enjoyed good health, thanks
to her " exact temperance both as to wine and diet,
which, she used to say, was the noblest part of
physic," and her active habits. In capacity for re-
sisting bodily fatigue and freedom from nervous
ailments, she was like a man. It was not till the
beginning of 1602 that those about her noticed any
signs of failing strength. She still went on hunting
and dancing. In dancing she excelled, and she kept
it up for exercise, as many an old man keeps up his
skating or tennis without being exposed to ill-natured
remarks. In December 1602 her godson Harington,
an amusing person, whose company she enjoyed, found
her " in most pitiable state," both in body and mind.
" She held in her hand a golden cup which she often
put to her lips; but in sooth her heart seemeth too
full to lack more filling." He read her some verses
he had written, "whereat she smiled once," but said,
"When thou dost feel creeping Time at thy gate,
these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my
relish for such matters. Thou seest my bodily meat
doth not suit me well. I have eaten but one ill-
tasted cake since yesternight." Harington hastened
to send a present to the King of Scots, with the in-
scription, " Domine memento mei cum veneris in regnum"
In the same month Eobert Carey, son of her cousin
Lord Hunsdon, visited her, and professed to think
her looking well. " No, Robin," she said, " I am
not well," and then "discoursed of her indisposition,
and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten
236 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
or twelve days, and in her discourse she fetched
not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. . . . Here-
upon I wrote to the King of Scots." 1 Her melancholy
was not caused by any weakening of her mind. A
long letter to James, dated January 5, 1603, though
hardly legible, is very vigorous and characteristic.
At the beginning of March 1603 she became much
worse. There was some disease of the throat, attended
with swelling and a distressing formation of phlegm,
which made speaking difficult. The only relatives
about her were Eobert Carey and his sister Lady
Scrope, watching keenly that they might be the first
to inform James of her death. She could not be
brought by any of her Council to take food or go to
bed. When in bed she had been troubled by a visual
illusion; "she saw her body exceedingly lean and
fearful in a light of fire." At last Nottingham, the
Admiral, who was mourning the recent death of his
wife, was sent for. He was a second cousin of Anne
Boleyn, and was the one person to whom the dying
Queen seemed to cling with some trust. He induced
her to take some broth. "For any of the rest," says
her maid-of-honour, Mistress Southwell, "she would
not answer them to any question, but said softly to my
Lord Admiral's earnest persuasions that if he knew
what she had seen in her bed he would not persuade
1 Elizabeth made large use of the courage and fidelity of her kins-
men on the Boleyn side, but she did little to advance them either
in rank or wealth. Hunsdon had set his heart on regaining the Boleyn
Earldom of Wiltshire. When he was dying, Elizabeth brought the
patent and robes of an earl, and laid them on his bed ; but the choleric
old man replied, " Madam, seeing you counted me not worthy of this
honour while I was living, I count myself unworthy of it now I am
dying."
xn LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603 237
ner as he did. And Secretary Cecil, overhearing her,
asked if her Majesty had seen any spirits; to which
she said she scorned to answer him so idle a question.
Then he told her how, to content the people, her
Majesty must go to bed. To which she smiled, wonder-
fully contemning him, saying that the word must was
not to be used to princes ; and thereupon said, ' Little
man, little man, if your father had lived ye [he ?] durst
not have said so much : but thou knowest I must die,
and that maketh thee so presumptuous.' And presently
commanding him and the rest to depart her chamber,
willed my Lord Admiral to stay ; to whom she shook
her head, and with a pitiful voice said, * My Lord, I am
tied with a chain of iron about my neck.' He alleging
her wonted courage to her, she replied, ' I am tied, and
the case is altered with me.'" At last, "what by fair
means," says Carey, " what by force, he got her to bed."
It was perfectly understood that she meant James
to be her successor. The Admiral now told his
colleagues that she had confided her intention to him
just before her illness took a serious turn. Two years
before, in conversation with Eosni, the minister of
Henry iv., she had spoken of the approaching union of
the Scotch and English crowns as a matter of course.
But it was not till a few hours before her death that
her councillors ventured to question her on the subject.
They gave out that she indicated James by a sign ;
and this is also asserted by Carey, who, however, does
not seem to have been present, though probably hia
sister was. Mistress Southwell seems to write as an
eye-witness, but betrays a Catholic bias, which may
cast some doubt on her testimony. " The Council sent
238 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP.
to her the bishop of Canterbury and other of the
prelates, upon sight of whom she was much offended,
cholericly rating them, bidding them be packing, saying
she was no atheist, but knew full well they were hedge-
priests, and took it for an indignity that they should
speak to her. Now being given over by all, and at the
last gasp, keeping still her sense in everything and
giving ever when she spoke apt answers, though she
spake very seldom, having then a sore throat, she
desired to wash it, that she might answer more freely
to what the Council demanded ; which was to know
whom she would have king ; but they, seeing her throat
troubled her so much, desired her to hold up her finger
when they named whom liked her. Whereupon they
named the king of France, the king of Scotland, at
which she never stirred. They named my lord
Beauchamp, 1 whereto she said, ' I will have no rascal's
son in my seat, but one worthy to be a king/ Here-
upon instantly she died." (March 23, afternoon.)
It is certain, however, that she lived several hours
after this characteristic outburst. Carey says that at
six o'clock in the evening he went into her room with
the Archbishop ; that, though speechless, she showed by
signs that she followed his prayers, and twice desired
him to remain when he was going away. She died in
the early hours of Thursday, March 24.
There have been many greater statesmen than
Elizabeth. She was far from being an admirable type
of womanhood. She does not, in my opinion, stand
first even among female sovereigns, for I should put
* Son of Catherine Grey by the Earl of Hertford. "Kascal" at
that time meant a person of low birth.
ill LAST YEARS AND DEATH : 1601-1603 239
that able ruler and perfect woman, Isabella of Castile,
above her. I admit, however, that such comparisons
are -apt to be unjust. Few rulers have had to contend
with such formidable and complicated difficulties as
the English Queen. Few have surmounted them so
triumphantly. This is the criterion, and the sufficient
criterion, which determines the judgment of practical
men. Research, if applied with fairness and common
sense, may perhaps modify, it can never set aside, the
popular verdict. There are writers who have made
the discovery that Elizabeth was a very poor ruler,
selfish and wayward, shortsighted, easily duped, faint-
hearted, rash, miserly, wasteful, and swayed by the
pettiest impulses of vanity, spite, and personal inclina-
tion. They have not explained, and never will, how
it was that a woman with all these disqualifications for
government should have ruled England with signal
success for forty-four years. Statesmen are indebted to
good luck occasionally, like other people. But when
this explanation is offered again and again with dull
regularity, we are compelled to say, with one who had
at once the best opportunity and the highest capacity
for estimating the greatness of Elizabeth : " It is not
to closet penmen that we are to look for guidance in
such a case ; for men of that order being keen in style,
poor in judgment, and partial in feeling, are no faith-
ful witnesses as to the real passages of business. It is
for ministers and great officers to judge of these things,
and those who have handled the helm of government
and been acquainted with the difficulties and mysteries
of State business." l
1 Bacon, Infdicem memoriam Mizabethce.
240 QUEEN ELIZABETH CHAP, xn
The judgment of those who have handled the helm
of government is to be found in the words of her
contemporary, the great Henry "She was my other
self : " and of a greater still in the next generation
" Queen Elizabeth of famous memory ; we need not be
ashamed to call her so ! " l
1 Carlyle, Letters and Speeches yf Oliver Cromwell, Speech v.
APPENDIX
243
APPENDIX A.
SESSIONS OF PARLIAMENT IN THE RFJGN
OF ELIZABETH.
Parlia-
ment.
Year
Eliza-
beth.
Began.
Prorogued.
Dissolved.
I.
1st
25 Jan. 155|
8 May 1559
II.
5th
12 Jan. 156f
10 April 1563
2nd' L
Sess. 1
8th
and
9th
30 Sep. 1566
30 Dec. 1566
2 Jan. 156?
III.
13th
2 April 1571
29 May 1571
IV.
14th
8 May 1572
30 June 1572
IV.)
2nd }-
18th
8 Feb. 157*
15 Mar. 157$
SisJ
3rd* [
Q 1
23rd
16 Jan. 158$
18 Mar. 158$
19 April 1583
oess. )
27th
V.j
and
23 Nov. 1584*
29 Mar. 1585
14 Sep. 1586
I
28th
(
28th
VI. \
and
15 Oct. 1586*
29 Oct. 1586
23 Mar. 158?
1
29th
VII.
31st
4 Feb. 158f
29 Mar. 1589
VIII.
IX.
35th
39th
19 Feb. 159|
24 Oct. 1597*
10 April 1593
9 Feb. 159
X.
43rd
27 Oct. 1601
19 Dec. 1601
Adjourned over Christmas Vacation.
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Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty,
at the Edinburgh University Press
twelve lEnaltsto Statesmen.
EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
Crown 8uo. 2s. 6d. each.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. By EDWARD A. FREEMAN,
D.C.L., LL.D.
Times. 'Gives with great picturesqueness . . . the dramatic incidents of a
memorable career far removed from our times and our manner of thinking.'
HENRY II. By Mrs. J. R. GREEN.
Times. ' It is delightfully real and readable, and in spite of severe compression
has the charm of a mediaeval romance.'
EDWARD I. By T. F. TOUT, M.A., Professor of History, the Owens
College, Manchester.
Speaker. 'A truer or more life-like picture of the king, the conqueror, the over-
lord, the duke, has never yet been drawn.'
HENRY VII. By JAMES GAIRDNER.
Athenaeum. ' The best account of Henry vn. that has yet appeared.'
CARDINAL WOLSEY. By Bishop CREIGHTON, D.D.
Saturday Review. ' Is exactly what one of a series of short biographies of
English Statesmen ought to be."
ELIZABETH. By E. S. BEESLY, M.A.
Manchester Guardian. ' It may be recommended as the best and briefest and
most trustworthy of the many books that in this generation have dealt with the life
and deeds of that " bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of happy memory."'
OLIVER CROMWELL. By FREDERIC HARRISON.
Times. ' Gives a wonderfully vivid picture of events.'
WILLIAM III. By H. D. TRAILL.
Spectator. ' Mr. Traill has done his work well in the limited space at his com-
mand. The narrative portion is clear and vivacious, and his criticisms, although
sometimes trenchant, are substantially just.'
WALPOLE. By JOHN MORLEY.
St. James's Gazette. ' It deserves to be read, not only as a work of one of the
most prominent politicians of the day, but for its intrinsic merits. It is a clever,
thoughtful, and interesting biography."
PITT. By LORD ROSEBERY.
Times. ' Brilliant and fascinating. . . . The style is terse, masculine, nervous,
articulate, and clear ; the grasp of circumstance and character is firm, penetrating,
luminous, and unprejudiced ; the judgment is broad, generous, humane, and scrupu-
loufcly candid. . . . It is not only a luminous estimate of Pitt's character and policy,
it is also a brilliant gallery of portraits. The portrait of Fox, for example, is a
masterpiece.'
PEEL. By J. R. THURSFIELD, M.A.
Daily News. 'A model of what such a book should be. We can give it no
higher praise than to say that it is worthy to rank with Mr. John Morley's Walpole
in the same series.'
CHATHAM. By FREDERIC HARRISON.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
JL O J U 1
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With Portraits. Crown 8uo, Cloth. 2s. 6d. each.
NELSON. By JOHN KNOX LAUGHTON.
Saturday Review. 'The obligation laid upon him to be brief, and his own
anxiety to leave untold nothing of first-rate importance, have combined to give us
an almost ideal short life of Nelson. '
WOLFE. By A. G. BRADLEY.
Times. ' It appears to us to be very well done. The narrative is easy, the facts
have been mastered and well marshalled, and Mr. Bradley is excellent both in his
geographical and in his biographical details."
COLIN CAMPBELL (Lord Clyde). By ARCHIBALD FORBES.
Times. 'A vigorous sketch of a great soldier, a fine character, and a noble
career. . . . Mr. Forbes writes with a practised and lively pen, and his experience of
warfare in many lands stands him in good stead in describing Lord Clyde's services
and campaigns.'
GENERAL GORDON. By Colonel Sir WILLIAM BUTLER.
Spectator. 'This is beyond all question the best of the narratives of the career
of General Gordon that have yet been published."
HENRY THE FIFTH. By Rev. A. I. CHURCH.
Scotsman. 'No page lacks interest ; and whether the book is regarded as a
biographical sketch or as a chapter in English military history it is equally attractive."
LIVINGSTONE. By THOMAS HUGHES.
Spectator. ' The volume is an excellent instance of miniature biography.
LORD LAWRENCE. By Sir RICHARD TEMPLE.
Leeds Mercury. 'A lucid, temperate, and impressive summary."
WELLINGTON. By GEORGE HOOPER.
Scotsman. ' The story of the great Duke's life is admirably told by Mr. Hooper.'
DAM PIER. By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
Athenaeum. ' Mr. Clark Russell's practical knowledge of the sea enables him
to discuss the seafaring life of two centuries ago with intelligence and vigour. As a
commentary on Dampier's voyages this little book is among the best."
MONK. By JULIAN CORBETT.
Saturday Review. ' Mr. Corbett indeed gives you the real man.'
STRAFFORD. By H. D. TRAILL.
Athenaeum. 'A clear and accurate summary of Strafford's life, especially as
regards his Irish government."
WARREN HASTINGS. By Sir ALFRED LYALL.
Daily News. ' May be pronounced without hesitation as the final and decisive
verdict of history on the conduct and career of Hastings."
PETERBOROUGH. By W. STEBBING.
Saturday Review. 'An excellent piece of work."
CAPTAIN COOK. By Sir WALTER BESANT.
Scottish Leader. 'It is simply the best and most readable account of the
great navigator yet published. 1
SIR HENRY HAVELOCK. By ARCHIBALD FORBES.
Speaker. 'There is no lack of good writing in this book, and the narrative is
sympathetic as well as spirited."
CLIVE. By Colonel Sir CHARLES WILSON.
Times. ' Sir Charles Wilson, whose literary skill is unquestionable, does ample
justice to a great and congenial theme."
SIR CHARLES NAPIER. By Colonel Sir WILLIAM BUTLER.
Daily News. 'The "English Men of Action" series contains no volume more
fascinating, both in matter and in style.'
WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER. C. W. C. OMAN.
Glasgow Herald. ' One of the best and most discerning word-pictures of the
Wars of the Two Roses to be found in the whole range of English literature."
DRAKE. By JULIAN CORBETT.
Scottish Leader. 'Perhaps the most fascinating of all the fifteen that have so far
appeared. . . . Written really with excellent judgment, in a breezy and buoyant style."
RODNEY. By DAVID G. HANNAY.
Spectator. ' An admirable contribution to an admirable series.'
MONTROSE. By MOWBRAY MORRIS.
Times. 'A singularly vivid and careful picture of one of the most romantic
figures in Scottish history."
DUN DONALD. By the Hon. JOHN W. FORTESCUE.
Daily News. ' There are many excellent volumes in the " English Men of
Action" Series ; but none better written or more interesting than this."
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. By A. G. BRADLEY.
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MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
DA 357 .841 1906 SMC
Beesly, Edward Spencer,
Queen Elizabeth 47090950